Sara van Bever

Sara van Bever was a Dutch citizen, born in Paris. She married Joseph Polak, a businessman, at the Brussels Town Hall in 1900. The couple’s two eldest daughters, Jeanne and Marie, were both born in Belgium. The family moved to Paris in 1934, but Sara returned to Forest in Brussels after her husband’s death in 1936. She left Belgium again for the last time two years later, to be close to her daughters, who ran a shop in Paris. The three women were in the French capital when the occupation began. The Paris police organized a major round-up in the city on 14 September 1942, which also targeted Dutch Jews. Sara was detained at her home and sent to Drancy. She was deported from the assembly camp via Transport 39 to Auschwitz-Birkenau on 30 September 1942. Given her age, Sara van Bever (64) was probably sent straight to the gas chamber on arrival.