Julia Schaap was a daughter of Hartog Schaap and Johanna Gobas. She was born in Hilversum on 23 March 1906. With her parents, her sister Sara and her brothers Hijman Arie and Adolf, she arrived on 20 November 1912 from Hilversum in Amsterdam but moved on 12 January 1916 with the family to Hofstraat 4 in Enschede, where Julia married Mozes de Groot on 3 June 1927. He was a son of Israel de Groot and Grietje Hilversum. Her father Hartog Schaap stayed elsewhere and up from that time he no longer lived together with his family.
On 13 September 1927 Mozes and Julia arrived from Enschede in Amsterdam but they left already a month later, on 17 October 1927 to Kerkstraat 30 in Amersfoort, where on 3 March 1928 their son Lezer was born. Their second child was Israël, who was born in Zeist on 29 April 1929. However the marriage of Julia Schaap and Mozes de Groot did not last and on 30 August 1932 the wedlock was dissolved by divorce in Enschede.
The archives show, that Julia’s son Lezer stayed with his father but the 2-year old Israël was unsubscribed from Amsterdam to Enschede on 29 April 1931. Shortly afterwards, Julia de Groot-Schaap and her son Israël turned out to be registered in Zutphen, from where Julia left for Rotterdam on 15 April 1933, after her divorce from Mozes de Groot. There she found accommodation, at first at Nieuwekerkstraat 21a and in August 1933 at Schiedamsedijk 151a. On 4 October 1933 she married there the 25-year old Roman Catholic brewer’s aid Petrus Antionius Meertens but her marriage foundered and on 6 May 1935 followed the divorce in Rotterdam.
On 6 August 1934 Julia left for De Lareyweg 24 in Den Helder, where she got married for the third time, yet to the non-Jewish Cornelis van Rooijen, dance teacher by profession and born on 29 January 1904 in Utrecht. They moved to Zeestraat 14 in Beverwijk, where they ran a dance school which, however, went broke in 1939. Meanwhile Julia’s mother Johanna Schaap-Gobas and her grandson Israël also lived with them at Zeestraat 14.
Julia Schaap and Cornelis van Rooijen divorced in 1941, but married each other again on 8 April 1942. However, Julia and her son Israël were arrested on 18 November 1942 and carried off to Westerbork. She has made several attempts to escape deportation as she was married to a “full Aryan”. Despite all attempts, all arguments ,evidences and documents, it has led to nothing and on 13 April 1943, Julia and her son Israël were deported to Sobibor. There, upon arrival on 16 April 1943, they were immediately murdered in the gas chambers.
In 1944 the second marriage of Cornelis van Rooijen and Julia Schaap was dissolved again, Cornelis remarried then and passed in 1947.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Mozes de Groot, archive cards of Mozes de Groot and Julia Schaap; City Archive of Rotterdam, registration Peoples Registry of Julia Schaap and the family registration card of Petrus Antonius Meertens; website wiewaswie.nl/weddings Meertens/Schaap and divorced Van Rooijen/Schaap; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Julia Schaap; website Oorlogsslachtoffers IJmond (Dutch Language only) and the website Oorlogsdoden Oldenzaal (Dutch Language only); the certificates of death made out in Beverwijk for Israel de Groot, nr. 134 dated 6 June 1950 and for Julia Schaap, nr. 264 dated 15 December 1949.