David Dankfried Mechlowitz

David Dankfried Mechlowitz was born on 25 May 1926 in Hannover. He has an older brother Isidor (1924). Within a month after the Kristallnacht on 9 November 1938, David and Isidor (1924) fled to the Netherlands with a children’s transport and arrived in Amsterdam on 6 December 1938. At first they stayed in the Zeeburg quarantine centre in Amsterdam, after which David and Isidor were given a place in a children’s home in Arnhem, at the Schelmseweg 93. A year later they end up in Driebergen. Then the paths of both brothers separate. Shortly after the outbreak of the second world war in the Netherlands, David had to leave Driebergen – the Germans claim Huize Kraaybeek – and was taken care of in the orphanage at the Amstel in Amsterdam. Isidor had been given a place in the Werkdorp three months earlier. Soon after the opening on 10 November 1941 David, like Isidor, was given a place in the youth centre of the Jewish Council.

David Dankfried and his brother Isidor were on the first transport to Auschwitz and were killed within three months on 30 September 1942. Their parents managed to escape to England and survive.