Biography

About Herman Kan and his family.

Herman Kan, born 29 August 1861 in Oldenzaal, was a son of Moses Kan and Hanna Habermann. On 2 May 1902, he married Johanna Kaufmann in Beul in Germany, who was born 7 November 1878 in Combahn in Germany, a little village north of Beul, which is nowadays a district of the city of Bonn. She was a daughter of David Kaufmann and Auguste Kalz. On 10 March 1903, their daughter Lotte Ruth Kan was born in Oldenzaal.

Herman Kan and his wife Johanna resided in Oldenzaal. On 2 February 1939 they moved to Borne where they lived at Ennekersdijk 6. Their daughter Lotte Ruth has been married 13 August 1935 in Oldenzaal to the Hungarian Tibor Feldman from Miskolcz, a son of Miksa Feldman and Hedvig Zeilendorf. They too lived in with their parents/parents-in-law in Borne.

Since 27 Februray 1940 Herman Kan and his wife Johanna Kaufmann lived at Parnassusweg 30 3rd floor in Amsterdam and four months later they moved again to Uiterwaardenstraat 130 1st stock and per 9 October 1940 their addres in Amsterdam became Van Baerlestraat 4 1st floor. On 13 June 1942 also Lotte Ruth and her husband Tibor came living in there too.

Their daughter Lotte Ruth was brought in Westerbork 12 January 1944 were she was locked in at the penal barrack 67. On Sunday 3 September 1944 she was put on the last transport from Westerbork to Auschwitz where she survived the horrors of Auschwitz and could be repatriated to Amsterdam.

Her husband Tibor Feldman has survived the Holocaust too – probably by going into hiding. In the file cabinet of the Jewish Council no registration card of him was found and other documents showed that he was not carried off to Westerbork. Further it is known that Tibor Feldman lived at Teniersstraat in Amsterdam in January 1946, where his wife Lotte Ruth was reunited with him in January 1946 after her return from Auschwitz. Both died in Amsterdam after 1990.

Herman Kan and his wife Johanna Kaufmann however were already carried off 20 April 1943 from their residence in Amsterdam to Westerbork. Herman had to stay in barrack 83 and his wife in barrack 68. Both were deported on 4 September 1944 with the last transport from Westerbork to Theresienstadt.  Hermann Kan has lost his life there 15 January 1945.

Johanna Kaufmann belonged to those who survived Theresienstadt. Her name appeared on a list of 9 June 1945 of survivors of Theresienstadt. She was reunited in January 1946 with her daughter and son-in-law in Teniersstraat 2. Johanna Kan-Kaufmann died in 1970 in Amsterdam.

City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Herman Kan, Johanna Kaufman, Lotte Ruth Kan and Tibor Feldman; the file cabinet of the Jewisch Council, registrationc ards of Herman Kan, Johanna Kaufman and Lotte Ruth Kan and the website wikipedia.org, list of Jew-transports from the Netherlands..

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