At Vosmaerstraat 21 lived Gerrit Polak, his wife Elisabeth Polak-Stuiver, and Jaantje Koopman, who had lived and worked with the family since 1930. Gerrit, born in Amsterdam in 1897, trained as a diamond cutter but later opened a cigar shop in Haarlem with Elisabeth. After a fire destroyed their shop and home in Koningstraat in 1934, they moved to Vosmaerstraat, first to number 9 and from 1937 to number 21. Their daughter Mary survived the war. Gerrit and Elisabeth were taken to Westerbork on 11 May 1943, deported to Sobibor on 18 May and murdered on arrival, 21 May 1943. Jaantje, born in Amsterdam in 1904, had grown up in a Jewish girls’ orphanage and worked as a maid and likely shop assistant. She was arrested earlier, deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz on 9 February 1943 and murdered on arrival, 12 February 1943.
