The youngest child of Hijman van Praag and Elsje Oudkerk was Emanuel van Praag, born on 19 January 1915. He was unmarried and lived in Den Helder at Keizerstraat 76. There he had a sister Jogeva in 1913 and an older brother Gerrit in 1910.
The Den Helder Militia Register shows that 19-year-old Emanuel van Praag attended 6 years of primary school, followed by 2 years of trade school and went then to work as a salesman and merchant. On 7 March 1934, Emanuel was released from the Militia due to brotherly service.
After German bombing of Den Helder and later English bombing of installations and naval yards in Den Helder, many residents of Den Helder fled elsewhere. On 2 August 1940, the Van Praags were registered in Velsen, but Emanuel remained in Den Helder; he later moved to Schagen, where he lived at Cornelis Bokstraat 115 and worked as a warehouse clerk and salesman in a shop.
The parents of Emanuel van Praag lived in from 5 February 1942 in Amsterdam on the 2nd floor of Merwedeplein 45, as a result of a German regulation that Jews from the province had to move mandatory to Amsterdam. Emanuel lived in Schagen and Jogeva with her husband Gerrit/Gerard van Praag at Kanaalstraat 63 in IJmuiden.
The precise cause or reason for the arrest of Emanuel van Praag and his brother-in-law Gerrit van Praag could not be deduced from the Amsterdam Police Register and reports,, nor from other documents, which just stated that both were arrested on 1 October 1942 and together with a certain Isak Grunwald from Den Helder and subsequently on 2 October 1942, were taken into custody at Office 11, the Jewish Affairs Bureau, for arraignment at the S.D.
That office had a special place within the metropolitan police. Since 1941, reports have been made about the mistreatment of detainees, threats and lies to get 'the truth' out of detainees. Many NSB members, who were in various corps, had found their way to this office and they were soon nicknamed 'the Dutch Gestapo'. (see www.joodsamsterdam.nl/bureau-joodsche-zaken/. Dutch language only)
It is known that they were still “in custody” at the Jewish Affairs Office on 4 October 1942, but it is not known when they were transferred to Camp Amersfoort. But Emanuel and his brother-in-law Gerrit van Praag, as well as the aforementioned Isak Grunwald, were sent after "interrogation" to Camp Amersfoort, from where Isak was sent to Westerbork on 9 December 1942, where he ended up in sick barrack 82. He was deported to Sobibor on 23 March 1943.
In a group of 30 Jewish prisoners, Emanuel and Gerrit arrived from Camp Amersfoort in Westerbork on 23 December 1942, where Emanuel was also admitted to sick barrack 82. After his “healing” he was locked up in penal barrack 66. Available documents do not indicate what happened to Gerrit van Praag after his arrival in Westerbork on 23 December. Clear is that he was deported to Sobibor on 17 March 1943, but his brother-in-law Emanuel was deported to Auschwitz already on 29 January 1943.
After arriving in Auschwitz, nothing more was heard of and known about Emanuel van Praag. After the war, the Ministry of Justice, based on, among other things, Red Cross investigations, instructed the municipality of Den Helder to draw up a death certificate for him, stating that, in accordance with a court order of the Alkmaar District Court of 2 November 1950 Emanuel van Praag must have died in or in the vicinity of Auschwitz between 29 January 1943 and the capitulation of the German army in May 1945. His actual date of death is unknown but is mentioned on the Jewish Monument as May 1945.
Sources include the Regional Archive of Alkmaar/Population register Den Helder with the Hijman van Praag family; the Noord Hollands Archive of Haarlem, Militia registers Den Helder, archive 23, inventory number 442, 1935, Militia register, 1935, deed number 99/ Emanuel van Praag; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration card of Emanuel van Praag; the City Archive of Amsterdan, police reports of 1 and 2 October 1942 with Emanuel van Praag, Gerrit van Praag and others; info from Camp Amersfoort about the mentioned prisoners; the archive of the Red Cross, publication “Auschwitz IV” edited October 1953 and the death certificaten no. 272 for Emanuel van Praag, made out 1 December 1950 at Den Helder.