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And These are Their Names... Identifying the Death March Victims Buried in a Mass Grave in Poland
Yad Vashem And These are Their Names... Identifying the Death March Victims Buried in a Mass Grave in Poland

Aron Schelvis Magen David

Auschwitz no. 164030

Barracks in Westerbork Transit Camp, Holland A barbed wire fence and watch tower in the Vught Transit Camp, Holland

Aron Schelvis was born on the 29th of November 1925 in Amsterdam. A tailor, he lived in the city of Bussum at 26a Floralialaan together with Meijer Schelvis, a relative who was also a tailor. In summer 1942, Schelvis and his two brothers moved into their elder sister Margaretha's home. She was a seamstress and her husband Jozef Stodel was a tailor; they lived in Amsterdam at 50 I Afrikanerplein.

On the 16th of March 1943 Schelvis was deported to Vught concentration camp in Holland. From there he was sent for forced labor on the Moerdijk bridges in a satellite camp of Vught. On the 17th of July 1943 he was sent to the transit camp Westerbork and was incarcerated there for over half a year.

On the 15th of November 1943 Schelvis was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. On arrival at the camp he passed the selection, received the number 164030 and became an inmate of the camp. He was an inmate of the coal mine Günthergrube in Lędziny, a sub-camp of Auschwitz. According to documents in the Auschwitz archive Schelvis underwent a periodic medical examination in the Waffen SS clinic in the camp on the 15th of September 1944.

Margaretha and Jozef Stodel were murdered in Birkenau in August and September 1942. Both of Aron's brothers were also murdered: Leendert, aged 20, was murdered in Birkenau in May 1944 and the younger brother Hartog was murdered on the 9th of April 1943 in Sobibor death camp at the age of 14.

The Transport
On the 15th of November 1943, 995 Jews departed on an RSHA transport from the transit camp Westerbork in Holland to Auschwitz. The transport included 166 children, 281 men, 291 women under the age of 50 and 257 elderly.

Following the selection, 275 men received the numbers 163798 – 164072 and 189 women received the numbers 68724 – 68912.

The rest, 531 people, were murdered immediately in the gas chambers.


Do you have any additional information about this person? Contact Yad Vashem.