Catharina Jacoba Salomon was a daughter of Joseph Salomon (1838-1868) and Esther Rosenbach (1836-1907). She was born on 23 March 1866 in Wijk bij Duurstede (prov. Utrecht). Her sister Rosetta was born on 19 September 1867, but she died as a 2-month-old baby on 5 December 1867. After Rosetta's birth, no more children were born, as Joseph Salomon passed away too, in 1868, on 24 April, in Wijk bij Duurstede, aged only 30 and so Catharina Jacoba Salomon remained an “only” child.
Joseph's widow Esther Rosenbach remarried on 7 October 1869 to Hertog Levi Frijda, who was born on 9 October 1841 in Veenendaal. Six children Frijda were born from Esther Rosenbach's second marriage, of which only Sara Frijda was murdered in Sobibor during the Shoah. All others had died before the war: three at a very young age and two yet before the outbreak of the Second World War.
At the age of 25, Catharina Jacoba Salomon married 35-year-old Hartog Gersons, born on 10 March 1856 in Tilburg as a son of David Gersons and Jutte de Jonge. The marriage was concluded on 2 November 1891 in Wijk bij Duurstede, but the couple settled in Tilburg at Bisschop Zwijsenstraat 47, where Joseph runned a beef butchery.
The Gersons-Salomon couple had a total of seven children, of whom Josef Benjamin (and his family) were the only ones to survive the Holocaust. Of the other children, David, Louis and Henriette Rosa and their families were killed during the Shoah. Stella Rosa, Henri and Paulina Stella died in childhood, before they were 2 years old. On 27 January 1933, butcher Hartog Gersons passed away in Tilburg. He was almost 77 years old at the time and has been buried in Oisterwijk.
A few months later, the widowed Catharina Jacoba Gersons-Salomon moved from Tilburg to Amsterdam on 23 March 1933. She moved in with her daughter Henrietta Rosa, who was married to Abraham Bloemendal, and they lived at Burmanstraat 11 house. Catharina stayed with them until 19 June 1940, but then left for Sarphatistraat 152, 1st floor, where she briefly found shelter with Abrabam Montanhes and his wife Marianne da Silva Abenatar, also affiliated with the PIG (Portuguese Israëlitic Congration). But in the second half of October 1940, Catharina Gersons-Salomon moved back to Tilburg, address Oosterwijkschebaan 141.
Already on 26 November 1940, Catharina Gersons-Salomon moved from Tilburg to Gouda where she was registered as a resident of the Jewish Retirement Home at Oosthaven 31. On the evening of 9 April 1943, the home was evacuated by the SS and police and the residents were taken to Westerbork. Catharina Jacoba was registered there on 10 April 1943. On 13 April she was deported to Sobibor with more than 1200 other victims, including her sister-in-law Paulina Elzas-Gersons, and immediately murdered in the gas chambers upon arrival there on 16 April 1943. There were no survivors.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, reference card Hartog Gersons, archive cards of Catharina Jacoba Salomon, Abraham Bloemendal and Henriette Rosa Gersons; family registration card of Catharina Jacoba Gersons-Salomon; Amsterdam residence cards of Burmanstraat 30 goundfloor, 11 groundfloor and Sarphatistraat 152 1e floor; website Stolpersteine Route 10, Oosthaven 31 Gouda; (Dutch language only); the book Joods Gouda II (Jewish Gouda II) page 318 residents Oosthaven 31 by Tom Verwaijen, edited in 2016 and the Wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl/transport 13 April 1943.