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Marcus Sluis was a diamond cutter and Adela Zeelander also came from a diamond worker family. Together they had three children: Sara, Clara and Filip. The Sluis-Zeelander family was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau via different transports (III, IX and XXI). None of them survived the war.
Marcus Sluis was born on January 20, 1893 in Amsterdam. As a diamond cutter he lived alternately in the Netherlands and Belgium. In January 1919 he came to Antwerp for the third time and settled with his parents at Statieplein 14. Adela Zeelander was born on August 19, 1904 in Antwerp and also came from a diamond worker’s family. Marcus and Adela met and married on December 19, 1922. One month later the couple moved to Kleine Beerstraat 4 in Antwerp. Marcus was a beneficiary of the Compensation Fund of the Belgian Diamond Industry and was a member of the General Diamond Workers Union of Belgium since January 22, 1923.
Marcus and Adela had three children: Sara was born on November 2, 1924, Clara on October 28, 1926 and Filip on June 6, 1934, all in Antwerp. The family moved several times within the city and finally settled on Dambruggestraat 65.
In May 1940 Nazi Germany invaded Belgium. Father Marcus, mother Adela, and children Sara, Clara, and Filip obeyed the anti-Jewish laws of the occupation authorities. On December 19, 1940, they registered in the Register of Jews in Antwerp, and on April 28, 1942, they became members of the Jewish Association.
When the “evacuation” of the Jews began in August 1942, daughters Sara and Clara were put on transport III. They accepted the Arbeitseinsatzbefehl, the employment order issued by the Sipo-SD. As “compulsory laborers”, they were summoned to the Mechelen assembly camp to be deported thereafter. Transport III left on August 15 in Mechelen and arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau on August 17. Sara and Clara did not survive the war. According to the death certificates in the Auschwitz Archives, Sara died on September 26, 1942. Clara’s date of death is unknown to us.
Marcus was released in September 1942 from an Organisation Todt labor camp in France where he worked as a forced laborer during the summer. He returned to Antwerp. A few days later, on September 11, 1942, mother Adela was arrested during the third major anti-Jewish raid in Antwerp, which unlike the previous raids was carried out in broad daylight and took place on an important day of the Jewish calendar: the Jewish New Year. After her arrest, Adela was put on transport IX under the number 485, which left from the Dossin Barracks towards Auschwitz-Birkenau on September 12, 1942. Adela did not survive the war either.
Father Marcus and son Filip were arrested in May 1943 and registered in the Dossin Barracks on the list of transport XXI under numbers 194 and 196. Transport XXI left the Dossin Barracks on July 31, 1943 for Auschwitz-Birkenau. Marcus and Filip were also murdered. None of the family Sluis-Zeelander survived the war.
Publication info:
ADRIAENS Ward, STEINBERG Maxime (et al.), Mecheln-Auschwitz, 1942-1944. The destruction of Jews and gypsies from Belgium, 4 volumes (volume 1), Brussels, 2009.
