Wouthuijsen-Ricardo family. Collection

Willem Wouthuijsen was born in Amsterdam on 16 April 1888 and became a diamond cutter. In 1912 he married Ester Ricardo, born in Amsterdam on 8 August 1887. The couple had three children : Louis David, born on 9 December 1913 in Amsterdam (passed away on 11 July 1916), Siegfried Adolf, born on 17 August 1916 in Amsterdam, and Elisabeth, born on 13 April 1918 in Amsterdam. In 1931 the family migrated to Antwerp. After studying chemistry at Ghent University, Siegfried Adolf alias Sieg Wouthuijsen returned to the Netherlands to study at Leiden University. He survived the war abroad and became a physicist who also contributed to quantum mechanics. The Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation and the Wouthuysen-Field coupling were both a result of his research and were named after him. Siegfried Adolf Wouthuijsen married and had a daughter. He passed away in 1996. Willem, Ester and Elisabeth still lived in Belgium at the time of the Nazi invasion on 10 May 1940. In 1941, Elisabeth Wouthuijsen married the Hungarian chemical engineer Károly Faragó. They settled at Timmermansstraat 102 in Forest, Brussels. Károly's nationality protected the young couple from deportation, but Károly did not survive the war. In 1943 he reported for the Hungarian work service (munkaszolgálat), thinking this would protect him more as a Hungarian national. It was communicated after the war to Elisabeth that Károly had been sent to Ukraine where he escaped, joined a group of partisans and was executed after the Nazis traced the group. Elisabeth went on to marry mister Wieberdink and had children and grandchildren, among whom the donor of the collection. Elisabeth Wouthuijsen passed away in 2011. In July 1942, Willem Wouthuijsen and Ester Ricardo received a convocation for forced labour (Arbeitseinsatzbefehl). Both of them reported to the Dossin barracks on 1st August 1942 and were added to the deportation list of Transport II. They remained at the Dossin barracks for 10 days and wrote several letters to their daughter Elisabeth while interned there. Both were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and murdered.

In 2015 grandson Ger Wieberdink donated digital copies of the three letters sent by his grandparents Willem Wouthuijsen and Ester Ricardo while interned at the Dossin barracks to his mother Elisabeth Wouthuijsen.

Ger Wieberdink, grandson of Willem Wouthuijsen and Ester Ricardo, 2012