Biography

The fate of Greta Agsteribbe.

victim of the raid on the clothing factory Hollandia Kattenburg

Greta Agsteribbe was the middle one of the five children of Willem Agsteribbe and Bertina van West. She was born in Amsterdam on 27 March 1916 and became a seamstress by trade. On 6 January 1939 she started working for the clothing factory Hollandia Kattenburg in Amsterdam.

Greta was unmarried and lived with her parents at Nieuwe Herengracht 159, where her parents operated a boarding house. Greta was born at Waterlooplein 35, were her parents has lived between March 1916 and May 1931. Her father then was still an errand boy but soon he was able to change his job and became a renter of halls. The family - including Greta - moved to Nieuwe Herengracht in 1935.

From the beginning of 1939, Greta was an employee at Hollandia Kattenburg and suffered too the fate of the 367 Jewish employees who were arrested on 11 November 1942 during the raid on the factory led by Willy Lages. The SS man Rauter was responsible for the “supply” of enough Jews from the Netherlands for the so-called "Arbeitseinsatz", but Berlin was dissatisfied with that in 1942: not enough!

Rauter had now succeeded in making some of the Jews at Hollandia Kattenburg suspicious. During the subsequent razzia of 11 November, 130 of the 367 Jewish employees of the factory were transferred to the penitentiary in Scheveningen for so-called acts of sabotage. (source website joodsamsterdam.nl/Hollandia Kattenburg). 

It is clear from the notes on Greta Agsteribbe's Jewish Council registration card that she belonged to those 130 men and women who were suspected of (so-called) sabotage. In prison they were severely beaten and mistreated so that they would confess their (uncommitted crimes).

Greta was transferred from Scheveningen to Westerbork on 26 November 1942 and then deported to Auschwitz on 30 November. On arrival there on 3 December, 1942, she was immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Willem Agsteribbe; archive card of Greta Agsteribbe; birth certificate 3661/1916 from register 7 folio 8 of Greta Agsteribgbe; website joodsamsterdam.nl/Hollandia Kattenburg (Dutch language only) and the Wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl/30 November 1942.

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