Rachel Elisabeth Italiaander (Chelly) was the eldest daughter of Isidor Italiaander and Esther Stad. She was born on July 1, 1929 in Amsterdam. Still, it wasn’t until 1939 that she had a sister, Elisabeth Julia, and in 1941, a brother, Marcus Jozef, followed. The two youngest children survived the war by going into hiding.
Rachel Elisabeth was also in hiding, even though she, her sister, and her brother had a “Sperre” (exemption) because their mother, Esther Italiaander-Stad, worked as an “assistant” in the pastry shop owned by her father-in-law, Marcus Italiaander. This shop was located at 1a Van Musschenbroekstraat in Amsterdam and was classified as a so-called “Jewish Establishment.” Due to their mother’s exemption, they, too, were temporarily exempt from deportation.
However, on May 26, 1944, 15-year-old Rachel Elisabeth was arrested and taken to Westerbork. From the available records, it is unclear how or why she was arrested. In Westerbork, she was not treated as a “penal case” and was housed in barrack 35, known as the “orphanage,” rather than in penal barrack 67. The fate of her parents, who had been murdered a year earlier, in the summer of 1943 (a fact only confirmed after the war), would have been unknown to her while she was in barrack 35.
On September 3, 1944, she was deported on the last transport from Westerbork to Auschwitz, where she arrived on September 6 and was taken to the camp. She perished sometime in September or October 1944. Her exact date of death is unknown. Therefore, after the war, the Ministry of Justice ordered the Municipality of Amsterdam to issue a death certificate for Rachel Elisabeth Italiaander, establishing that she was murdered in Auschwitz on October 31, 1944.
Sources
https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/de/document/130310783
https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/tijdlijn/d418a215-e059-471b-a650-8a118561a456
https://oorlogsgravenstichting.nl/personen/68972/rachel-elisabeth-italiaander
https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/page/214132/rachel-elisabeth-italiaander
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