Samuel Kaufman, born in Nijmegen on 31 December 1891, was a son of David Kaufman and Betti Bertha Meijler. He married in Ameide (province of Utrecht) Jetje Meijer on 5 January 1916. She was a daughter of Jacob Meijer and Fronika Hakkert and was born in Ameide on 27 June 1892. The couple Kaufman-Meijer had a daughter Veronica, who was born in Rotterdam on 26 March 1917.
Samuel Kaufman was a paper merchant. After being married to Jetje Meijer, they lived together at Nieuwe Markt 16a in Rotterdam. After eight more relocations, they moved into a house in the Westewagenstraat 92 in the city centre of Rotterdam, moved on 2 December 1936 in the same street to house nr. 23 and per 22 June 1939 to house nr. 47c. During the mandatory registration of all Jews in the Netherlands, Samuel and Jetje however were registered at the address Beukelsweg 39a in the district named “Het Nieuwe Westen” (the New West).
Their daughter Veronica was engaged in July 1938 to Abraham de Wit and some time later they got married and again some time later, Samuel Kaufman and Jetje Meijer became grandfather and grandmother; they had a granddaughter, who was born on 17 Februray 1941 in Gouda. But on 19 June 1941 her mother Veronica de Wit-Kaufman passed away in the Dutch Israëlitic Hospital at the Schietbaanlaan in Rotterdam and she was interred in the Jewish Cemetery Toepad. Veronica’s and Abraham’s baby, Grietje de Wit, was just 4 months old when she, due to her mother’s passing, had to be accomodated with her grandparents Kaufman, who lived at the Beukelsweg 39a during the war.
Samuel Kaufman and his granddaughter Grietje de Wit were caught and carried off to Westerbork between 3 and 5 October 1942; grandma Jetje Kaufman-Meijer followed only on 13 October but on 16 October, the three of them were put on transport to Auschwitz. Upon arrival there on 19 October 1942, the then 1 ½ old Grietje de Wit as well her grandma Jetje Kaufman-Meijer were immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The transport of 16 October 1942 was a so-called “Kozel transport”. During a stop at Kozel, which is located about 80 km west from Auschwitz, 570 boys and men between 15 and 150 years of age were forced to leave the train. They then were deployed as forced labourers in the surrounding labor camps of Upper Silesia. Samuel Kaufman eventually ended up at the steelworks of Malapane in Poland (village today called Ozimek in de county of Opole). There Samuel had to perform slave labor and after more than a year, he lost his life there due to hardship and/or inhumane conditions. He was interred in a mass grave at the Roman Catholic Cemetery in the nearby village of Szczedrzyk.
Sources include the City Archive of Rotterdam, family registration cards of Samuel Kaufman and Abraham de Wit; website wiewaswiel.nl/marriage Kaufman-Meijer; website joodserfgoedrotterdam.nl/beukelsweg 39a; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Samuel Kaufman, Jetje Kaufman-Meijer, Grietje de Wit and the Wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl.