History of Sorts

Margard (Marga) Kaufmann, born in Gronau, Germany 10 November 1928. Murdered in Auschwitz on 3 September 1943, reached the age of 14 years.

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Marga’s parents were married in 1923 in Gronau, where her mother, Adele, had taken over her grandmother’s grocery store in 1918. Marga never knew her grandparents, Zilversmit. Her mother had four brothers, some of whom lived with their families in the Netherlands, where her grandfather originally came from. After 1933, the entire family fled to the Netherlands.

Marga (born 1928) and her older sister Henny (born 1924) were born in Gronau. Henny was slightly disabled because she had suffered from meningitis as a baby. Ida Lebenstein, an unmarried woman from Ochtrup and a relative by marriage of Uncle Max Zilversmit (who lived in Maastricht), took care of the children, particularly Henny. The family and Ida fled Germany in March 1937 and registered in Geleen at Rijksweg Zuid 30. Richard had taken over a store at that address as of 1 March 1937, selling groceries, deli meats, colonial goods, wine, and liquor, among other items.

Before their departure to the Netherlands, the Kaufmann family already had close contact with the Zilversmit family in Maastricht and with Ida Lebenstein’s family, who later fled to Sittard. In August and November 1935, Marga was already photographed together with Elfriede Lebenstein and her fiancé Carl Goldsteen, as well as her cousin Helga Zilversmit from Maastricht. Helga and her brother Hans often visited Geleen.

Marga’s father, Richard, was arrested in 1941 for reasons that remain unknown and sent to a Dutch labour camp or prison. From there, he ended up in Westerbork in early October 1942. Marga and her mother were offered the chance to go into hiding but didn’t dare to, fearing that their husband and father would be deported to the East as punishment. They were among the last group of Jews rounded up on 8 April 1943 and were transported via Vught to Westerbork on 9 April, where they were reunited with Richard. Henny, who was in the Sint Joseph Hospital in Heerlen at the time, was overlooked by the Nazis and was hidden there for the rest of the war. Ida Lebenstein seems to have tried to go into hiding in early April, but she was quickly caught and also sent to Vught and Westerbork, from where she was deported to Sobibor in May 1943 and gassed there. Marga and her parents were transported together to Auschwitz on 31 August, arriving on the evening of 2 September 1943, and immediately sent to the gas chambers. The Red Cross determined their official date of death as 3 September 1943. Only Henny Kaufmann survived the war, thanks to the courage and care of the staff at Sint Joseph Hospital.

Uncle Max and his wife and children went into hiding in Liège; cousin Helga was captured but survived the concentration camp. In 2006, she published her memoirs about Auschwitz-Birkenau under the title “Through the Eye of the Needle: Maastricht–Lièg–Mechelen–Auschwitz.”

I mentioned that she could have been my neighbour because I also lived on Rijksweg Zuid in Geleen for several years.

Sources

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/en/page/137508/margard-kaufmann

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/tijdlijn/0a6cc81e-7f14-44dc-a8e5-4de40a46c089

https://www.stolpersteinesittardgeleen.nl/Slachtoffers/Margard-Kaufmann

https://oorlogsgravenstichting.nl/personen/76122/margard-kaufmann