Route of Commemorative Plaques

19. Timorstraat 17

This was the home of SYBILLA SOMMER-APPEL
Murdered in Sobibor on 09/04/1943

Sybilla Appel was born in Bonn on 13 March 1862. She married August Sommer and they had two daughters: Hedwig (29 October 1892) and Louise (22 March 1897). Sybilla, however, was soon to be left on her own with her two daughters. She continued to live in Bonn; her last address there was Endenicher Straße 290. In 1932, daughter Hedwig married Hermanus van Dijl, a wood merchant, and departed for the Netherlands. Louise stayed in Bonn after her marriage.

The Escape

In 1939, when the Nazi terror could no longer be avoided, Sybilla fled on her own to the Netherlands. She initially went to Rotterdam but, on 9 October 1940, she registered in Amersfoort at Leusderweg 175. But she did not stay there long. In February 1941, she moved in with widow H. de Man in Timorstraat 17. This address was also home to Hermine Noah-Goldschmidt and other German refugees.

In September 1942, Sybilla was once again discovered and had to move to the ghetto in Muiderstraat in Amsterdam, the holding centre for Westerbork. On 13 March 1943, she ended up in barrack 62.

Murdered in Sobibor

On 6 April, Sybilla Sommer-Appel, who was 81 years old, was on the list for Sobibor. Of the 2,020 people on this 6th transport, just two women survived the camp and the war. Sybilla was murdered upon arrival in Sobibor on 9 April 1943. Her daughter Hedwig had been gassed earlier in Auschwitz on 30 September 1942. It is not known whether Louise survived the war.

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This was the home of HERMINE NOAH-GOLDSCHMIDT
Murdered in Sobibor on 09/04/1943

Hermine Noah-Goldschmidt was born in Gostini, Latvia on 7 January 1881. She married Siegbert Noah on 1 March 1901. On 29 January 1902, their daughter Charlotte was born and on 22 February 1907, their son Kurt was brought into the world. Siegbert died in February 1922.

To Amersfoort

As an adult, Kurt worked in the Tietz department store, which later became Westduitse Galeria Kaufhof A.G. As a result of the growing anti-Semitism in the land of his birth, Kurt wanted to move to the Netherlands but could not do so without work. He therefore applied to the company Ph. Knorringa in Groningen from his home in Berlin. On 21 February 1934, he started work. In the autumn of that year, he married Herta, and she was then able to join him. At the end of 1937, as a result of work, they decided to move to the centre of the country, to Amersfoort.

Just a short note

For Hermine, the Kristallnacht in November 1938 and the subsequent pogrom against the Jews in Berlin were good reason to leave for the Netherlands. At the beginning of 1940, she went to live with Kurt and Herta At the end of December 1941, she was living with the widow H. de Man in Timorstraat 17, where she stayed until the end of August 1942. Hermine, however, was forced to leave Amersfoort because all Jews over the age of fifty were ordered to move to Amsterdam at the end of 1942. She ended up at Muiderstraat 33huis, a ghetto for Jews over the age of 50. This is where Sybilla Sommer-Appel lived. From there, Hermine was taken to the Hollandsche Schouwburg. On Wednesday 10 March 1943, she sent a short message to say that on Friday 12 March they were leaving for Camp Westerbork. On 6 April 1943, she was put onto the transport to the extermination camp Sobibor, where she was immediately killed on 9 April 1943.

Children

Hermine never knew that her daughter Charlotte and her husband Arthur had already been deported from Berlin on the ‘Osttransport’ on 19 February 1943. Nothing was heard from them again. Son Kurt was the only one in the family to survive the war. He died on 27 March 1994 at the age of 87.

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