Rudolf Ludwig van Gelder was the middle one of the three children of Leizer van Gelder and Johanna an Gelder and was born 10 September 1908 in Essen in Germany. He had another brother Werner Benno and a sister Irma Friederike. Rudolf and his sibs have lost their lives during the Shoah; his mother passed away in 1939 and his father survived the Holocaust and died in 1957 in Rotterdam.
Rudolf Ludwig stayed in his place of birth Essen but left at some point to Kaiserslautern. On 22 August 1936 ha arrived from there in Den Haag, where also his parents and sibs lived. However, after one year, on 22 October 1937 also Rudolf moved with his parents and brother to Maastricht, where he came living with his parents at Heerderweg 52. His brother lived there at St. Antoniuslaan 11b. His sister decided to stay living in Den Haag as she would be married in December 1937 to Isidore Eduard Kaas. The last known addres of Rudolf, his brother and father in Maastricht was Alexander Battalaan 2b.
Just as his brother Werner was Rudolf a fishmonger too. He was unmarried and tried also to escape deportation by going into hiding. Probably both have been betrayed; on 3 June 1944 Rudolf and Werner were brought into transit camp Westerbork were they were locked in in penal barrack 67. On 31 July 1944 they, and another 211 other deportees were deported to Theresienstadt and from there Rudolf and Werner were put on transport to Auschwitz on 28 September 1944. His brother Werner died somewhere en route in Bavaria and his death has been established as on 4 May 1945 but Rudolf ended up eventually in concentration camp Dachau, where he lost his life on 5 December 1944.
Sources among others: City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Leizer van Gelder; Municipal Archive of Den Haag, family registration card of Leizer van Geder; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration card of Rudolf Ludwig van Gelder and his certificate of death no.355 dated 24 May 1950 from the Regionaal Historisch Centrum Limburg, of which an extract was issued by the Ministery of Justice.