Samuel Walvis was the youngest son of Michel Walvis and Duifje Kat. He was born on 12 October 1916 in Amsterdam and was unmarried. His father had come to Antwerp in May 1913 to work as a diamond worker while his mother Duifje and his sister Dina Walvis stayed behind in Amsterdam.
His parents' marriage was not a happy one. When his mother and sister Dina came to Antwerp in March 1914, his mother filed a complaint against her husband with the Antwerp Public Prosecutor's Office for maintaining a concubine. But no lawsuit has taken place.
Duifje returned to Amsterdam in July 1914 with her legal husband Michel Walvis and daughter Dina. Their son Samuel was born on 12 October 1916 at their home address Joden Houttuinen 72. His father left for Belgium again in September 1919, lived in Strasbourg in France, in Antwerp and Borgerhout and never returned to Amsterdam. He was deported with convoy VI (6) from Mechelen to Auschwitz where he was murdered on 30 August 1942.
Samuel lived with his mother Duifje Kat until mid-October 1929 at Joden Houttuinen 72. His grandmother Fanny Kat-Cohen Kool also lived there, who left for The Hague in January 1930. However, Samuel and his mother had already moved in October 1929 to Ben Viljoenstraat 3 1st floor in Amsterdam East.
According to the registration during his examination for the National Militia in May 1935, Samuel had completed 7 grades of primary school. But he was permanently rejected due to a defect in his arm. Then, in 1937 and 1938, he started earning his living as a market vendor in irregular goods and manufactures and obtained a market permit for the Amsterdam markets in Ten Katestraat and Hasebroekstraat.
In October 1940, Samuel and his mother moved from Ben Viljoenstraat to Reitzstraat 8 ground floor. There they lived in with the Hijman Hakker family, who had married Samuel's sister Dina Walvis, but on 14 July 1941 they both left again and moved into a house at 102 3rd floor at Blasiusstraat in Amsterdam East.
From 19 February 1940, Samuel worked as a raincoat sticker/(paster/gluer) at the Hollandia-Kattenburg textile factory in Amsterdam. When the deportations started in July 1942, the Jewish employees of Hollandia Kattenburg were long exempted from deportation, thanks to the many orders of raincoats and groundsheets for the German Wehrmacht. However, on Wednesday, 11 November 1942, disaster struck when the Germans raided the Hollandia Kattenburg factories, arresting 367 Jewish employees and deporting them in the evening. Of these, 130 men were falsely accused of sabotage and were taken to the penitentiary in Scheveningen, where they were mistreated until they confessed to their uncommitted crimes. Among these 130 arrested was also Samuel Walvis.
On 30 November, all Jewish employees, together with their relatives, were deported from Westerbork to German concentration camps with the so-called Kattenburg transport, a total of 826 men, women and children. However, Samuel Walvis' mother Duifje Kat was not there; she was deported to Sobibor on 23 March 1943, where she was murdered upon arrival.
The then 26-year-old Samuel Walvis probably belonged to the group of 170 men between the ages of 15 and 50 who, during a stopover in Cosel, located about 80 km west of Auschwitz, were forced to leave the train to work in the surrounding labor camps in Upper Silesia as forced laborers. The remaining family members, men, women and children were transported onwards to Auschwitz and if they were not put to work after arrival in the camp itself, they were murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau immediately after arrival on 3 December 1942.
Where Samuel Walvis eventually ended up and under what circumstances he died is not known. His exact date of death is also unknown. Therefore, after the war, the Dutch authorities determined, partly on the basis of research and testimonials from survivors, that Samuel could no longer be alive after 28 February 1943. The Municipality of Amsterdam was then instructed to draw up a death certificate for Samuel Walvis, which states that he died on 28 February 1943 in Mid-Europe.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Salomon Kat (1844) and Michel Walvis (1889), archive card of Samuel Walvis; the Amsterdam birth certificatd of Samuel Walvis nr. 11946 dated 14 October 1916; Register of the National Militia re Samuel Walvis; Amsterdam residence cards of the Ben Viljoenstraat 3 – Blasiusstraat 102 en Reitzstraat 8; website Joods Amsterdam/Hollandia Kattenburg; newspaper Het Parool van 15 April 2022; Wikpedia list of Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl/30 November 1942 and the death certificate nr.263 for Samuel Walvis from the A-register 94-folio 45v, made out in Amsterdam on 15 February 1952.