Rachel Katwijk was a daughter of Jacob Katwijk and Sara Gosler. She was the 5th of the nine children in the Katwijk family and was born in Amsterdam on 2 January 1896. On 13 November 1919 she married there the diamond polisher Abraham Pront, a son of Zacharias Pront and Selly Lakmaker. He was born in Amsterdam too on 2 March 1896.
Before Rachel married Abraham Pront, she lived at home with her parents in Amsterdam. Also Abraham Pront lived with his parents at home but on 28 Juni 1905 the Zacharias Pront family moved to the 1st stock of the Blasiusstraat 107 in Amsterdam, where at the 2nd floor the Jacob Katwijk family lived, already up from November 1901.
After their weddingday in 1919, they found living space with Rachel’s mother Sara Katwijk-Gobes, who was widowed in July 1920 and then has moved to Blasiusstraat 46 2nd floor. There, on 17 April 1921 the first child of Rachel and Abraham, was born: Jacoba Pront.
On 6 January 1923 Abraham Pront left for Antwerp, where he started looking for work as a diamond polisher; he then lived at Wipstraat 40. He also stayed in Berchem from 21 January till 6 April 1923 but returned to Antwerp City on 6 April 1924; he has found work as a diamond polisher. When his wife Rachel with her daughter Jacoba came to Antwerp, they found living space in the Grote Hondstraat 81. There, their son Zacharias was born on 7 July 1924.
After having resided in Antwerp fors even months, the Pront family left for Borgerhout, Van der Meydenstraat 1, where they were registered as residents from 3 October 1924 to 31 December 1927. Thereafter they stayed in Berchem at the address Bixschotellaan 155. They returned to Amsterdam only on 25 September 1940, where they were registered at the address Vrolikstraat 249 groundfloor and on 17 May after moved again to Ruyschstraat 95 3rd stock.
Zacharias Pront, who was a machine fitter by profession, was summoned then on 22 July 1942 for the so-called “Arbeitseinsatz”, but just as his parents Rachel and Abraham Pront, he was temporarily postponed from deportation “because of “Militairy”(MIL). It was presumably in the early days of October 1942 that Zacharias and his parents were brought to Westerbork and already on 5 October 1942 Zacharias and his mother were put on transport to Auschwitz. Upon arrival there on 8 October 1942, Rachel Pront-Katwijk was immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The transport of 5 October 1942 was a transport with in total 2012 deportees, including a first part of the 10,000 Jewish forced labourers, who after the liquidation of the Jewish Labour camps in the Northern Netherlands had arrived in Westerbork. This transport made a stop at Kozel, located 80 km west from Auschwitz were 550 boys and men between 15 and 50 years of age were forced to leave the train to be deployed as forced labourers in the surrounding labour camps of Upper Silesia. Most likely, Zacharias belonged to this group. He eventually ended up in the concentration camp Weimar-Buchenwald where he lost his life on 23 February 1945.
Also Abraham Pront has been brought into Westerbork between 3 and 5 October 1942 but he was deported to Auschwitz on 12 October. Upon arrival there the 15th, Abraham Pront was not selected for the gas chambers but ended up in Auschwitz in some labour command. Due to the inhumane and terrible conditions there, Abraham Pront eventually perished in Auschwitz on 25 November 1942.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Zacharias Pront (1872) and Jacob Katwijk (1867); archive cards of Abraham Pront, Rachel Katwijk and Zacharias Pront (1924); residence card Blasiusstraat 107 1st stock; the Dossier of Foreigners of the City of Antwerp no.172469 images 692-700; death certificate for Abraham Pront from Amsterdam, nr. 255 dated 7 December 1950 from the A-register 60-folio 44; the Wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl and detail info and additions by Raymund Schütz.