Benjamin Nykerk

Benjamin Nykerk, a Dutch industrialist, moved to Brussels in 1932, where he married the gentile Marguerite Marienko. The couple never had children. Prior to the occupation, Benjamin was a leading figure in the Belgian Zionist movement. In September 1942, he cofounded  the resistance organization Comité de Défense des Juifs. In 1943, he travelled to Switzerland to collect  funds for the organization. For security reasons, Benjamin had to leave Brussels in early 1944. He lived in Paris under the alias Bernard Smits, but was arrested there on 20 March 1944, at the home of the head of the Dutch Red Cross. Benjamin Nykerk (37) was imprisoned at Fresnes and later at Compiègne, from where he was deported to Neuengamme as a political prisoner on 15 July 1944. He wrote a final letter to his wife in October 1944, after which there is no further record of him. Benjamin Nykerk did not survive deportation.