Samuel Cohen

Samuel Cohen, a Dutch dairy merchant, emigrated to Belgium with his wife, Henriette van Wijnbergen, in 1910. They returned to the neutral Netherlands during the First World War, to await the end of the conflict. Samuel and his wife settled in Antwerp in 1919. Henriette van Wijnbergen (74) died there in 1933. Samuel continued to live alone at the family home, where he witnessed the beginning of the occupation in May 1940. He moved to France in 1942, settling in Paris, where he was detained and sent to the Drancy assembly camp. Samuel Cohen was deported from the camp via Transport 44 to Auschwitz-Birkenau on 9 November 1942. Given his age, he was most probably sent straight to the gas chamber on arrival. Samuel was 84 at the time, making him the oldest Belgian-domiciled Jewish man to be deported from France.