Alex Salomons was born on 22 August 1901 in Hilversum as a son of Meijer Salomons and Bloeme de Paauw. After first working as a sculptor, he became a bookkeeper, with which he managed to support himself and his family, but during the mandatory registration with the Jewish Council in 1941, Alex Salomons turned out to be registered as a furrier.
The then Amsterdam family of Meijer Salomons and Bloeme de Paauw moved with their seven children to Langestraat 35 in Hilversum at the end of May 1897. Father Meijer Salomons traded in diamonds and Alex's brothers Machiel and Philip also worked in the diamond trade. The Salomons family stayed in Hilversum until early March 1916, where six more children were born. And when the family returned to Amsterdam on 7 March 1916, Alex Salomons was 14 years old.
Returning to Amsterdam in 1916, Meijer Salomons' family consisted of 13 children in addition to the two parents, seven of whom were born in Amsterdam and six in Hilversum. They lived successively in Swammerdamstraat, Overtoom 447, Ruyschstraat 13 and on 16 April 1931 they moved to Hunzestraat 11 in the Rivierenbuurt (River district) of Amsterdam-Zuid.
Alex married Gitla Grier on 11 April 1934 in Amsterdam, who was born in Chrzanow, Poland as a daughter of Majer Jakob Grier and Mirjam Frommer, who was born on 17 March 1908 and it appeared that the marriage remained childless. Shortly after the marriage took place, Alex and his wife Gitla left for Tel Aviv in what was then Palestine, where they remained until 23 October 1936.
After returning to Amsterdam, they lived for only a few weeks at Roerstraat 28, 3rd floor, but on 18 November 1936 they moved into living space at Sarphatistraat 169, 2nd floor, with Hermanus Blom. There they left on 4 October 1939 to Marnixstraat 366, 2nd floor, located along the western border of the Jordaan district in the Center area.
In July 1942 there were calls for the so-called “Arbeitseinsatz” in Germany, but Alex and his wife Gitla were “set back from deportation” by the Jewish Council on 1 August 1942. From November 1942 it was possible to apply for a Palestine Certificate through the Jewish Council under certain conditions.
Based on the manual notation on both their registration cards from the Jewish Council, “Albersheim declaration”, (a medical certificate on the basis of which one could demonstrate that one was physically fit for pioneer work), it can be assumed that Alex and Gitla at some point attempted have taken to qualify for a Palestine certificate.
That did not work out successful and on 23 September 1943 they were both arrested and taken to Westerbork, after which deportation to Auschwitz followed on 16 November 1943. This transport with a total of 995 victims also turned out to be the last transport of 1943 due to the use of train equipment for Christmas recess for soldiers and quarantine camp due to infantile paralysis.
After arriving in Auschwitz on 19 November 1943, Alex's wife Gitla Salomons-Grier was immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Alex Salomons, on the other hand, was selected for employment and after a 4-week “quarantine” ended up somewhere in the vicinity of Auschwitz or in one of the Janina or Fürstengrube coal mines. His exact date and location of death could not be determined.
Partly based on research by the Red Cross, the Dutch Authorities determined after the war that Alex Salomons no longer could be alive after 31 March 1944. The Ministry of Justice then instructed the Municipality of Amsterdam to draw up a death certificate for Alex Salomons, which states that he died in Poland on 31 March 1944.
Sources include the Amsterdam City Archives, family maps of Meijer Salomons (1863), Majer Jakob Grier and Alex Salomons; archive cards of Alex Salomons and Gitla Grier; Amsterdam Population Register/Meijer Salomons family to Hilversum; house cards Amsterdam/Ruyschstraat 13 and Hunzestraat 11 with Meijer Salomons family; the Red Cross archive/transport list September 23, 1943 Amsterdam-Westerbork; the archives of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Alex Salomons and Gitla Salomons-Grier; website Jews' transports from Nederland.nl/transport 16 November 1943; Death certificate 143 of 14 September 1951 from register A86-25v for Gitla Salomons-Grier and Death certificate 479 of 5 October 1951 from register A87-81v for Alex Salomons.