Of the fourteen children of Emanuel Oudkerk (1853) and Jegeva Sloog (1850), the three daughters Eva, Vrouwtje and Reintje remained unmarried. They were murdered during the Holocaust in Sobibor. The three sisters were born in Den Helder: Eva on 27 June 1884 and Vrouwtje on 2 September 1885, both at the time when Emanuel Oudkerk and his wife and children still lived at Vlootstraat 47 in Oud Den Helder, (Quarter B house 47). Reintje was born on 21 June 1891 at Langestraat 31 located in the same quarter, also in Oud Den Helder, where the Oudkerk family had moved to in the meantime.
Eva's sisters Vrouwtje and Reintje lived in Den Helder from birth, but Eva worked as a seamstress, ironer and/or lingerie seamstress elsewhere between 1912 and 1918: in Amsterdam, Haarlem and Arnhem. At the end of December 1917 she returned to Den Helder, where the sisters runned a little yarn and ribbon shop that time, as far as is known at Keizerstraat 67.
In the night of 24 to 25 June 1940 - barely six weeks after the "mistaken bombing" by the Germans just after the Dutch capitulation in May 1940 - English bombers of the Royal Airforce flew into the airspace of Den Helder to destroy the naval shipyard. A bombing that lasted 3.5 hours, almost the entire night, according to a witness. That night 38 people were killed by high explosive bombs and many civilians were also injured. Incendiary bombs caused enormous fires in the city. (source: website "Den Helder in ruins, a forgotten history".)
After the bombing, thousands of residents fled Den Helder. Also the sisters Eva, Vrouwtje and Reintje Oudkerk. They then ended up at Stationsweg 35 in Alkmaar (but probably not via the civil registry, because they do not appear on the lists). Until their return to Den Helder on 24 February 1941, the sisters lived in with widow Aaltje Kroon-Pranger, who also originally came from Den Helder. After returning to Den Helder, the sisters then lived at Kroonstraat 23.
Not long after, on 17 March 1942, they were forced to move to Amsterdam, where they ended up at Kribbestraat 45, 1st floor. There they were given lodgings by cousin Abraham Veerman and his wife Jegeva Beek, the daughter of Mietje Oudkerk and Leon Beek. (Mietje, an elder sister of Eva, Vrouwtje and Reintje Oudkerk).
Abraham, his family and the three resident sisters Eva, Vrouwtje and Reintje were forced to move to the Transvaal Destrict in Amsterdam-East on 27 November 1942 due to yet another German decree; they all ended up in the Reitzstraat 34, 3rd floor. (read more in his biography).
Cousin Abraham Veerman was deported to Auschwitz on 11 January 1943, after having been arrested and imprisoned on Amstelveenseweg in Amsterdam in 1942. His wife Jogeva and son Leon were not put on transport to Auschwitz until early 1944. The three sisters Eva, Vrouwtje and Reintje Oudkerk were brought to Westerbork after their arrest, already on 4 March 1943.
The three Oudkerk sisters seem to have submitted an application to Callmeyer to review their registration as Jews. When they did this is unknown, but it is clear that the application was rejected because the red letters CALL on their registration cards from the Jewish Council appear to have been crossed out.
Their registration cards also do not reveal why they were arrested, but the sisters appear to have committed an “offense” against the occupier, which is why they were locked up in penal barrack 67 in Westerbork on 4 March 1943.
On 10 March 1943, the three Oudkerk sisters were deported to Sobibor. The transport included a total of 1105 victims, including orphans from the Jewish Orphanage in The Hague. Further detail: this transport was still carried out with passenger wagons, which was however the last time, because the next transports were carried out with cattle and/or freight wagons.
Upon arrival of this transport, several dozen people were selected for work in Sobibor and in labor camps in the Lublin district. Thirteen women from this transport survived the war. Fourteen others from Lublin and two from Silesia have shown signs of life. This did not apply to Eva, Vrouwtje and Reintje Oudkerk; they were immediately murdered in the gas chambers upon their arrival on 13 March 1943.
Sources include the Population register of Den Helder/review of the Emanuel Oudkerk family; the City Archive of Amsterdam, closed family registrtion cards with Eva Oudkerk; archive cards of Abraham Veerman, Eva Oudkerk, Vrouwtje Oudkerk and Reintje Oudkerk; website "Den Helder in ruins, a forgotten history" – Dutch language only); website “Herdenkingsstenen Joods Alkmaar”/Stationsweg 35; residence cards of Amsterdam/Kribbestraat 45 1st floor and Reitzstraat 34 3rd floor; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Eva, Vrouwtje and Reintje Oudkerk; website oorlogsbronnen/ Callmeyer-list (Dutch language only); Transport list of 10 March 1943 Westerbork-Sobibor from the book Extermination Camp Sobibor by Jules Schelvis, edited by Bataafse Leeuw, 2e edition Amsterdam 1994 (mentioning names of 13 surviving women) and the website Jew Transports from the Netherlands.nl/transport of 10 March 1943.