Margiena Knorringa was the eldest of the four children of Mozes Knorringa and Helena Bendiks and was born in Uithuizen, province of Groningen on 7 March 1885. She had two other brothers: Sallie and Philippus and a sister Frouke. Philippus and Frouke have survived the Holocaust . Sallie and Margiena were killed during de Shoah.
Margiena married at the age of 27 on 5 May 1912 the 42-year old dealer Samuel Godschalk from Roden, a son of Joseph Godschalk and Saartje Levie. However, this marriage ended by the death of Samuel Godschalk on 23 November 1920 in Groningen.
On 28 March 1928, Margiena remarried Maurice Jacques Barnstein, a son of Heijman Barnstein and Vrouwtje Polak. He was born 25 June 1882 and previously married to Henriette Snijders. This wedlock ended already after 2 ½ year on 20 October 1922. As far as could researched, no offspring from this marriage was born. Also from both weddings of Margiena Knorringa, no children are known.
Maurice Jacques Barnstein travelled with photo articles and he worked on commission. During his first wedding he lived at 2nd Boerhaavestraat 60 1st floor in Amsterdam but in July 1922 Maurice left there already for the address Keizersgracht 719 where his father lived; the divorce has been declared officially in October 1922.
After the wedding of Margiena and Maurice in 1923, they stayed living at Keizersgracht 719 but per 18 August 1931 they moved to Amstel 175. On 19 July 1941 they moved again, now to Nieuwe Prinsengracht 6 1st floor, from where they were taken early September 1942 to Westerbork. There they were registered 6 September and already put on transport to Auschwitz the next day, 7 September 1942.
This transport was a so-called Cosel or Kozel-transport; during a stop in Kozel, about 80 km west from Auschwitz, 110 men between 15 and 50 years had to leave the train to be deployed as forced labourers in the surrounding labor camps. Those, who remained on the train were transported onwards to Auschwitz to be killed there.
Maurice Jacques Barnstein was already 60 years of age at that time and was not selected as labourer. On arrival in Auschwitz on 10 September 1942, he and his wife Margiena Knorringa were immediately killed.
Sources among others: City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Maurice Jacques Barnstein, archive cards of Henriette Snijders, Maurice Jacques Barnestein and Margiena Knorringa; Website wiewaswiw.nl/wedding Margiena Knorringa to Samuel Godschalk; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Maurice Jacques Barnstein and Margiena Barnstein-Knorringa and the Wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.