Abraham Mug was the eldest of the three children of the deaf and dumb couple Isaäc Mug and Esther Brilleman. He was born in Rotterdam on 14 August 1917 and lived with his parents at home at Anna Paulownastraat 43a, where they came to live in July 1936. Abraham had another brother Meijer and a sister Mietje.
On 27 March 1940 Abraham Mug married Mietje Coster, a daughter of Barend Coster and Betje van Coevorden. Since 1936, the Coster family lived at Vlaggemanstraat 26b and on 4 July 1939, Abraham moved in with his future in-laws. In order to provide for his family, Abraham Mug was active as a street-market vendor.
At the time of the mandatory registration of all Jews in the Netherlands, Abraham Mug and his wife Mietje Coster were registered in April 1942 as living at Doezastraat 29a, which was located in the north of Rotterdam and where they had been moved to already earlier at some point.
However, the archives of the Rotterdam Municipal Police show that Abraham Mug was arrested on 13 March 1942 for black-trade. He stated that he was a manufacturer, but it is not known what he produced. Abraham remained in custody for the Sicherheits Polizei and was sent to camp Amersfoort on 1 May 1942. Post-war notes on his Jewish Council registration card indicate that Abraham Mug was deported on 16 July 1942 from Kamp Amersfoort “towards Auschwitz”.
It is clear that Abraham Mug probably arrived in Auschwitz around the 19th of July 1942. From the remaining administration of Auschwitz-Birkenau it is obvious that he was registered in the admissions office (Aufnahmebüro) of the Political Department (Politische Abteilung), where he was given the prisoner number 48249, after which he was put to work somewhere in the camp. The kind of work is unknown nor his exact date of death.
Abraham's wife Mietje Coster was expecting their first child when she was arrested in the summer of 1942 and taken to Westerbork. She was granted a reprieve from deportation and on 13 October 1942 their daughter Betsy was born there, a daughter Abraham never knew.
After the war, the Dutch Authorities determined, partly on the basis of survivors’ testimonies and research, that Abraham Mug no longer could be alive after 30 September. Then the Municipality was commissioned to draw up a certificate of death for Abraham Mug, in which it is established that Abraham Mug has died in Auschwitz on 30 September 1942.
Sources include the City Archive of Rotterdam, family registration cards of Abraham Mug, Isaäc Mug and Barend Coster; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Abraham Mug, Mietje Mug-Coster and Betsy Mug; Archive of the Municipal Police of Rotterdam/arrest of Abraham Mug; Memorial & Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau/Auschwitz Prisoners/Abraham Mug/Zugangsliste Juden and the certificate of death for Abraham Mug, 1950.2814/v3-080v dated 8 August 1950.