de Jong family testimonies

Joseph de Jong was born in Amsterdam on 28 October 1921, and was a resident of that city up to the period of the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940. Several months after the occupation, de Jong, who had been working as an assistant to a furrier, and had previously been exempted from deportation, was caught in a raid and sent to a transit camp inside the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, in a theatre known as the Hollandse Schouwburg. During that period, he and Celina Jeanette Druif were married, and a short time thereafter, they were deported to the Westerbork camp, and from there, to Auschwitz. De Jong was assigned to a forced labor detail in Monowitz (Buna), and in other sub-camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau. In late 1944, he fell ill and was removed to the camp infirmary, where he was left behind when the camp was evacuated by the Germans, and was subsequently liberated by the Soviet army.

Celina Jeanette de Jong (nee Druif) was born in Amsterdam on 23 May 1923. Following the German invasion of the Netherlands, she was interned at the Hollandse Schouwburg in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam. As she had been engaged to be married to Joseph de Jong, the two decided to get married while they were interned, knowing that they would both be deported, and a civil ceremony was performed where they were interned. They were subsequently deported to Westerbork, and then shortly thereafter to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Upon arrival, she and her sister-in-law, Elizabeth Bueno de Mesquita, were sent to the experimentation block. They remained there until they were evacuated on a forced march in January 1945.

NIOD Instituut voor Oorlogs-, Holocaust- en Genocidestudies

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Reneé de Jong

Gift of Renée de Jong, 2016.