Meijer Menist, a son of Jacob Meijer Menist and Sippora van Gelderen, was born in Amsterdam on 17 September 1888. He married Branca van Rheen on 15 April 1912, a daughter of Simon van Rheenen and Hanna Rozette. Branca was born in Amsterdam on 15 July 1887. The Menist-van Rheenen couple had two children, viz. Simon in 1914 and Sippora in 1917.
Around the time of his marriage in 1912, Meijer Menist was a brilliant cutter by trade, but soon after that he already specialized in the trade of bicycles and their parts. He also traded as a shopkeeper in parts for radios and electro articles and was also an electrician. His wife Branca van Rheenen was a tailor.
After the wedding was concluded, Meijer and Branca lived at Rapenburg 2D-3rd floor. In 1915 they moved to Zeedijk 123 2nd floor and in August 1929 to Nieuwe Amstelstraat 10. From 1931 Meijer was also on the street market on Waterlooplein as a vendor of radio articles. The last address then followed on 24 May 1934 Oude Schans 50 2nd floor.
Meijer Menist had a trade in second hand radio articles at Waterlooplein in Amsterdam. And after Meijer and his family, just like all Jews in the Netherlands, had to register in 1941 obligatory, ánd in the summer of 1942, deportations started, Meijer Menist and his wife were granted an exemption of deportation because they ran a “Joods Lokaal” (Lok.Z) – a Jewish Commerce. He was an electrician and had a Jewish Council I.D. D-2259 as a owner of a Jewish business, where only Jewish residents were allowed to do their shopping. For the time being, he and his wife were exempted from deportation, “bis auf weiteres”, - until further notice.
But when in the second half of May 1943 the Germans canecelled all exemptions, Meijer Menist and his wife Branca van Rheenen were arrested and taken to Westerbork, where both were housed in barrack 55. On 1 June 1943 followed deportation to Sobibor and upon arrival there, on 5 June 1943, they were both immediately murdered in the gas chambers there.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Meijer Menist; archive cards of Meijer Menist and Branca van Rheenen; website wiewaswie.nl/wedding Branca van Rheenen and Meijer Menist; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Meijer Menist and Branca Menist-van Rheenen and the publication “Vermoedelijk op transport” (Presumably put on transport – Dutch language only), by Raymund Schütz, edited in 2010/2011/pages 42 and 43, the “Joods Lokaal Sperre”.