Louis Porcelijn was the youngest of the seven children of Salomon Porcelijn and Rika Augurk. He was born on 17 July 1916 in Amsterdam and he worked just as his father, in fish, as merchant and shopkeeper in fish. On 2 April 1940 he married in Amsterdam Marianne Slagter, a daughter of Benjamin Slagter and Jeanne Hamme. Marianne, who was a coat seamstress by profession, was born in Amsterdam on 27 January 1921.
Just as his parent and sibs, Louis arrived on 24 October 1924 from Nijmegen again in Amsterdam. Between October 1924 and April 1938, the Porcelijn family stayed at different addresses in the city but per 12 April 1938, their address became Ruyschstraat 89 1st floor in Amsterdam-East, also for Louis Porcelijn.
On 3 April 1940, Louis and his newly wed bride Marianne Slagter moved into a house in the Derde Oosterparkstraat 83 2nd floor, were their daughter Rika was born on 4 October 1940. The family moved shortly thereafter to the Dani Theronstraat, the Blasiusstraat and per 11 September 1942 they moved in with Marianne’s father Benjamin Slagter, who lived in the Kraaipanstraat 69 1st floor in the Transvaal district of Amsterdam.
Despite Louis was a shopkeeper in fish, he never received the so-called “Joodsch Lokaal Sperre”, the “Jewish Business Exemption”(Lok-Z), by which the fish shop was designated as a Jewish Business, where only Jews were allowed to shop. Perhaps Louis worked with his father Salomon Porcelijn, who possessed such an Lok-Z exemption, whereby he and his wife Rika Augurk were “only” deported on 16 February 1943.
Louis however, together with his wife Marianne and their little daughter Rika, were arrested and carried off to Westerbork at the time of the massive round-ups of early October 1942. Somewhere between 3 and 5 October they arrived in the camp finding there a great chaos, while, due to the German decision to liquidate all Jewish labour camps in the Northern Netherlands at the same time, all Jewish forced labourers arrived also in Westerbork for deportation to the East.
Then on 12 October 1942, Louis Porcelijn, his wife Marianne Slagter and their daughter Rika Porcelijn were deported to Auschwitz in a transport of 1711 deportees in total. This transport arrived in Auschwitz on 15 October, where Marianne Porcelijn-Slagter and her little daughter Rika were immediately gassed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
On the other hand, during the selection on the “Rampe”, the platform in Auschwitz, Louis was selected to be put to work as a force labourer. Unkown is where he ended up, nor the exact date is known where and when and under what conditions he lost his life. After the war, based on testimonials of survivors and from other information - the Dutch authorities have established that Louis Porcelijn could no longer be alive after 31 March 1944. The Ministry of Justice then commissioned the Municipality of Amsterdam to draw up a death certificate for Louis Porcelijn, in which has been determined that he has died on 31 March 1944 (somewhere) in Poland.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Salomon Porcelijn, archive cards of Louis Porcelijn and Marianne Slagter; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Louis Porcelijn, Marianne Porcelijn-Slagter and Rika Porcelijn; the Wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl and the death certificate nr. 57 dated 30 October 1953 from the A-register 102-folio 11 for Louis Porcelijn made out in Amsterdam.