Sophie Oudkerk, born on 17 May 1918 in Amsterdam, was a daughter of Levie Oudkerk (calling himself Louis) and Selma Hemelrijk. She worked as a maid, stenotypist and office clerk. At the time of the compulsory registration of all Jews in the Netherlands, Sophie was registered in 1941 at the home address Nicolaas Witsenstraat 17 upper-house in Amsterdam.
Nathan Grüner was a son of Oscar Grüner and Freia Goldblatt, who was born on 11 August 1906 in Malstatt, a district in Saarbrücken (Germany). Nathan was a cabinet maker and merchant and he was registered in Westerbork on 4 August 1942. It seems that Sophie Oudkerk was already an acquaintance of Nathan Grüner, because the many notes on Sophie Oudkerk's registration card from the Jewish Council show, that she went to Westerbork "Without being summoned" and also entered there on 4 August 1942.
From Essen, where he lived with his parents, Nathan came to the Netherlands, where he first lived on 28 September 1938 at St. Buijsstraat 7 in Nijmegen. Then on 10 November 1939 he moved to 2e Jan van der Heijdestraat 36 3rd floor in Amsterdam and on 8 October 1940 he found lodgings with the family of Alfred Oppenheim at Deltastraat 14 ground floor, located between Merwedeplein and Victorieplein in the River District of Amsterdam-South.
On 24 April 1941 Nathan left for his parents in Essen in Germany but the actual reason is not knwn: possibly because of the passing of his father Oscar Grüner. His mother Freia Goldblatt, as well as his brothers Julius and Josef Grüner, were deported from Düsseldorf to the Ghetto of Izbica in Poland on 22 April 1942.
In Essen Nathan “escaped by the skin of his teeth” and returned on 3 June 1942 to the Deltastraat 14 ground floor in Amsterdam. However, a month later, on 4 August 1942, he appears to have been taken to Westerbork. (Red Cross archive/Transports to Westerbork/201-245/no. 233 page 29 no. 44). Sophie Oudkerk also arrived in Westerbork that same day.
The presumption that Sophie Oudkerk and Nathan Grüner were already “acquaintances” of each other seems to have been confirmed because on 23 September 1942, that “acquaintance” was converted into a marriage in Camp Westerbork. The marriage certificate states, among other things, that the mother of the groom is “resident” in Izbica in Poland and that the groom declares under oath that he cannot provide a birth certificate or a deed of acquaintance.
After having stayed in Westerbork for almost a year, Nathan Grüner was put on transport to Sobibor on 20 July 1943, where he was murdered in the gas chambers after arriving on 23 July 1943. It is not known why the marriage could not last, but on 20 July 1943, the marriage of Nathan and Sophie was dissolved by judgment of the District Court of Assen, whereby the registration of this took place on 3 September 1943 in the registers of the Civil Registry, i.e. after the deportation of Nathan Grüner.
Nathan's wife, Sophie Oudkerk, from whom Nathan was divorced still during his lifetime, was still staying in Westerbork at that time and 7 months later, on 3 April 1944, she married for the 2nd time in Westerbork to Aribert Max Jacobi, who was born in Berlin on 19 March 1912 as the natural son of Bianka Jacobi.
Aribert Max Jacobi arrived in Amsterdam from Berlin on 19 December 1938, but already 5 days later he left for Beesel (N.B.), from where he went to Rotterdam on 28 August 1939 and from 22 April 1940 he stayed in camp Westerbork, where he belonged to the "old camp residents". However, at the outbreak of the war on 10 May 1940 he was imprisoned.
Two days after the wedding, on 5 April 1944, both were put on transport to Bergen Belsen. A train then left with five different destinations: 240 Jews in freight cars to Auschwitz. 101 Jews in two passenger cars to Bergen-Belsen, including Sophie Jacobi-Oudkerk and Aribert Max Jacobi, 289 Jews in two cars to Theresienstadt. In addition, 41 women and children to Ravensbrück (one car), and 28 men to Buchenwald (one car), mainly Romanian Jews. In Assen, freight wagons were coupled with 625 Jews from Belgium for Auschwitz.
Sophie and Aribert both endured the horrors of Bergen Belsen: on 21 January 1945, they were selected for an exchange project with Nazis in foreign captivity and went from Bergen Belsen to Biberach, where they were liberated and repatriated via Paris to the Netherlands, where Aribert Max Jacobi stayed in Apeldoorn in 1946 and 1947 and Sophie Oudkerk from September 1945 in Amsterdam at Herengracht 94 ground floor.
After returning to the Netherlands, Sophie and Aribert divorced. On 7 March 1946, the District Court of Amsterdam delivered a default judgment, in which the divorce was pronounced between Sophie Oudkerk and Aribert Max Jacobi. On 1 May 1946, the divorce was registered in the Civil Registry of Westerbork.
Sophie Oudkerk left in 1957 for Los Angeles, South Westgate USA, where she married for the 3rd time on 8 November 1962 with Alfred Joseph Boyce, born in Toronto (Canada) on 10 October 1917. The marriage took place in Malibu (California), but was dissolved by divorce in The Hague on 2 February 1967.
Sophie Oudkerk passed away on 16 November 2012 in Amsterdam and was interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Muiderberg.
Sources include the City Archives of Amsterdam, family registration card Levie Oudkerk; website stenenarchief.nl/ record 29394 Louis Oudkerk; Amsterdam archive cards of Sophie Oudkerk, Nathan Grüner, the German Memorial Book of the Victim of the Persecution of Jews under the National Socialist Warfare in Germany/Freia Grüner-Goldblatt and Josef and Julius Grüner; the archive of the Red Cross/transport list of 4 August 1942 Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Westerbork with Nathan Grüner, page 29 line 44; website openarchieven.nl/wedding- and deeds of divorce of Sophie Oudkerk x Nathan Grüner and Sophie Oudkerk x Aribert Max Jacobi; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Sophie Oudkerk, Nathan Grüner, Aribert Max Jacobi, and the website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland/Transport 5 April 1944.