Daniel van Gelder was a son of Salomon van Gelder and Fogeltje de Lange. He was born on 3 March 1881 in Assen and married there on 17 August 1910 Judikje Troostwijk, who was born on 14 January 1880 in Leeuwarden as a daughter of Samuel Troostwijk and Doortje Troostwijk. The couple had two children, namely their daughter Fogeltje who was born in 1911 in Groningen and in 1913 there also their son Samuel.
After Daniel and Judikje were married, the newlywed couple lived at Groningerstraat 8 in Assen since 12 November 1910 but moved on 28 August 1911 to Groningen city, were both their children were born. Daniel van Gelder earned his money as warehouseman, rag sorter and dealer. On 20 June 1913 they moved from Groningen back to Assen, where they found living space at Steendijk 39.
Howver, Daniel’s spouse Judikje Troostwijk passed away in Assen on 5 January 1941 and she was interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Assen. Shortly thereafter, the 60-year old Daniel van Gelder married the still unmarried and 50 year old Betje Katwijk from Amsterdam. She was born there on 1 August 1890 as the eldest of nine children of Jacob Katwijk and Sara Gobes and she worked as a seamstress.
Already on 17 March 1941, Betje arrived from Amsterdam at Steendijk 27 in Assen and the wedding took place one month later, on 21 April 1941 in Assen, where also Betje’s mother Sara Gobes was present. The cause of the subsequent events is not entirely clear: it could be the prolonged presence of Betje’s mother Sara Gobes, or that a quarrel arose between the “newly married”. In any case the Municipal Police of Assen had to intervene.
The day and night reports of the Assen Municipal police show, “that Daniel van Gelder evicted his wife Betsy/Betje Katwijk and his mother-in-law on 11 June 1941 after a quarrel. On 12 June, Betsy sells the curtains to the neighbor to pay for the return trip to Amsterdam”. (source Drents Archive). Betje van Gelder-Katwijk returns to Amsterdam, alone, on 25 June 1941; Daniel's mother-in-law had already arrived in Amsterdam before.
On 10 August 1942, Betje van Gelder-Katwijk has been put on transport from Westerbork to Auschwitz where upon arrival on 12 August 1942, she was immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
However, the fate of Daniel van Gelder is somewhat shrouded in mystery: It is not clear where Daniel van Gelder stayed after he evicted his wife and mother-in-law and/or what happened to him. But his registration card from the Jewish Council shows that he entered Westerbork between 3 and 5 October 1942. Between the moment Daniel showed his wife Betje Katwijk the door and the date of Daniel's arrival in Westerbork, it is not known where he had been then, but a stay in a Jewish labor camp is not unlikely.
In the night of 2 to 3 October 1942, the Germans liquidated all Jewish labor camps and all Jewish forced laborers ended up in Westerbork. This, together with the so-called family reunification, in which women and children of the Jewish forced laborers were "collected" and brought to Westerbork, as well as the large-scale raids that the Germans held at the beginning of October 1942, caused chaotic scenes in the camp, so the camp registration was way behind, while the deportation trains to Auschwitz “normally left as scheduled”. As a result, people have literally “disappeared” - they were registered afterwards but are not on transport lists.
Daniel van Gelder's Jewish Coucil registration card states that he was still in Westerbork between 11 and 13 October 1942 and that he was deported to Auschwitz in "October 1942", which must have been after 13 October. After 13 October, that month five more trains left for Auschwitz and it can be assumed that Daniel van Gelder was deported to Auschwitz with one of those transports (between 13 and 30 October 1942). A post-war Red Cross card states that he died after 8 October 1942, but no later than 2 November 1942 in Auschwitz – which can be explained from the transport date "October 1942"; his last known address in Assen was Steendijk 27 and has worked as a ditcher.
Also based on a mention of his death in Auschwitz from the collection of family ads of the Central Bureau for Genealogy, the Jewish Monument states his death as on 2 November 1942 in Auschwitz.
Sources include the website Alle Drenten/peoples registry Assen; website Openarchieven.nl/wedding Daniel van Gelderx Judikje Troostwijk; the Archive of Drenthe/police reports 1941 Assen; the City Archive of Amsterdam/archive card of Betje Katwijk and the Central Bureau for Genealogy/family ads/death Daniel van Gelder and further information from Camp Westerbork.