Louis Bremer, who was born on 30 October 1919 in Rotterdam, was a son of the bread baker Joseph Bremer and Eva Koekoek. He married 27 May 1940 in Rotterdam Esther Sanders, a daughter of Benedictus Sanders and Sara Boeki and who was born in Rotterdam on 14 October 1921. The couple had two children, namely Joseph in July 1940, born in Rotterdam and Benedictus, who was born in Westerbork July 1943. The family lived at Nieuwe Binnenweg 196b in Rotterdam. All were killed in the Shoah.
Louis Bremer was already carried off to – and registered in Camp Westerbork on 7 August 1942. He stayed there in the barrack 58 but was hospitalized on 23 May 1943 in the sick bay of barrack 82. In February 1943, he still has received parcels in Westerbork. On 7 September 1943 he was put on transport to Auschwitz. This transport arrived there on 9 September 1943 where Louis was selected for hard labor.
Louis Bremer belonged to a large group of forced labourers, who were transported on 7 October 1943 to Warsaw to clear the ruins of the demolished gettho. They ended up there in a concentration camp which was located in the Gestapo prison Gestiowka (Camp Gesia). This transport, from Auschwitz to Warsaw, was also already mentioned in the book “De oorlog die Hitler won”(The war Hitler won), by H. Wielek in 1947:
On 7 October 1943, a transport to Warsaw was put together at Auschwitz, during which the forced labourers had to clean up the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, which was destroyed in the summer of 1943. Until 28 July 1944, this work continued under the most humiliating and brutal circumstances. Then the Russians stood in front of the City. A crematorium that was under construction to exterminate all the prisoners of the ghetto camp was no longer completed in time. The Germans decided to evacuate the ghetto. A few days before departure, the partisans attacked the camp in vain. After the 600 sick people who were unable to walk were shot, the rest had to march 120 km to Kutno, from where they were taken in cattle wagons, 90 men per carriage, to Dachau. 15 of the 1050 Dutch who left for Warsaw experienced the liberation in Dachau. (Source: R. Stern from De Oorlog die Hitler won (the War Hitler won), pages 381 and 382 by Wielek, published by De Amsterdamse Boek- en Courantschapij (ABC) 1947.
And an American historian, Gerald Reitlinger wrote that when the Russian troops approached, the survivors of the camp were sent to concentration camp Dachau, via Kutno. According to Reitlinger, of the mentioned transport of 7 October 1943 from Auschwitz to Warsaw, there were only 15 survivors. It has also been established that many prisoners of this Jewish camp in Warsaw died during a severe typhoid epidemic in early 1944. Among them were also many Jews from the Netherlands. (An interpretation based on a study, reports and testimonies as described in the book “Etty Hillesum in perspective”, edited by K.A.D. Smelik, Ria van den Brandt and Meins G. Coetsier. (pages 149-151). Editors: Academia Press, Ghent, Belgium)
Louis Bremer, however, was not one of the 15 surviving Dutchmen who experienced the liberation in Dachau but he ended up in the Kaufering camp, one of the worst camps that belonged to the system of eleven sub-camps of the Dachau concentration camp and were located around the city of Landsberg on the Lech in Bavaria, Germany
Recent information from the KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau (Concentration Camp Memorial Dachau), addressed to a user of this website, it appears that Louis Bremer was imprisoned on arrival in the concentration camp Dachau with prison number 88895. He arrived there on 1 August 1944 with 3953 other persons from Warsaw who came from Hungary, Poland, France and Germany. Louis Bremer was registered in Dachau on 6 August 1944 but died on 17 February 1945 in the Kaufering camp.
Sources include the City of Rotterdam, family registration cards of Joseph Bremer and Benedictus Sanders; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration card of Louis Bremer; H. Wielek, 1947, “De oorlog die Hitler won”(The war Hitler won) page 381 and 382; website https://www.verzetsmuseum.org/dachau/louis-bremer; wikipedia website Warsaw concentration camp; wikipedia website Kaufering concentration camp complex; Certificate of death made out in Rotterdam for Louis Bremer, inventory 1950V1-folio V1-192-deed no. 1950.1140; additions of visitors of the website.
See also the story Auschwitz of Warschau on this website.
The biograpy of 7 April 2016 was rewritten on 4 December 2020