On 6 August 1942, Esther Pinkhof and Henri-Abraham Asscher got married in Amsterdam, in the shadow of the persecution of Dutch Jewry by the Germans. In July 1943, Esther's parents and her three sisters were murdered at Sobibor. Henri and his parents were also murdered. Esther survived.
Esther-Rosa was born in 1922 in Amsterdam, the firstborn daughter of Marianne-Jeannette née Openheim and Meijer Pinkhof. She had three sisters, Adèle-Louise (b.1924), Sophie (b. 1925) and Clara-Jeannette (b. 1928). Meijer Pinkhof was a meteorologist and a doctor of biology.
Henri (Hans) Abraham was born in 1921 in Amsterdam, to Hendrina née Duizend and Joseph Asscher. He had a sister, Louise-Los, who was one year his senior. His brother Abraham (b. 1918) died in infancy. Henri was an accountant in the Asscher family's diamond business, and was a cousin of Abraham Asscher, a prominent member of the Amsterdam Jewish community and later on one of the heads of the Joodse Raad (Jewish Council).
The Germans occupied the Netherlands in May 1941. Restrictions and decrees against the Jews were imposed from September, and a Jewish Council was established. The Jews' property was looted, their movement was restricted and they were gradually banned from communal areas, from public service and from universities, and were expelled from the schools. From May 1942, they were forced to wear the Yellow Star. The mass deportation of the Jews of the Netherlands began in the summer of 1942. The Jews were detained in transit camps in the Netherlands, and then sent eastward, principally to the extermination camps of Auschwitz and Sobibor, under the guise of resettlement for the purposes of labor.
Esther and Henri's wedding was one of hundreds of Jewish weddings that took place in Amsterdam in 1942. The couples hoped that marriage would provide a modicum of protection from the labor camps in the Netherlands to which mostly unmarried men were sent, and later on, they believed that they would not be separated once deported to the East. From March 1942, the Jews of Amsterdam were compelled to perform civil weddings at the Hollandsche Schouwburg (Dutch Theater) instead of at the Town Hall, in a further measure designated to isolate them from the general public. From October 1942, the theater was used as a collection point for Amsterdam's Jews prior to their deportation. Like other couples, Esther and Henri were forced to wear the Yellow Star prominently displayed on their wedding clothes.
Henri was employed as assistant gardener at the Jewish psychiatric institution, "Apeldoornsche Bosch" in Apeldoorn from May 1942. After he married Esther, he returned to work, and Esther stayed in Amsterdam for a little while.
On 13 September 1942, Esther, her father Meijer, her mother Marianne and her sisters Adèle, Sophie and Clara were arrested. During a search of their home, photographs of Esther and Henri's wedding were discovered, and she was interrogated as to Henri's whereabouts. His work at the Jewish psychiatric hospital under the auspices of the Joodse Raad protected him from deportation at that time. Esther and her family were transferred to the Dutch Theater. One of the Joodse Raad staff who was on site and knew Henri, recognized Esther and released her as a member of the Asscher family. Her parents and sisters were sent to the Westerbork transit camp in the northeastern Netherlands. Personnel at the meteorological station in Amsterdam approached the German authorities and requested Dr. Meijer Pinkof's release, in light of his importance to their work. Presumably as a result of this plea, three weeks later, Meijer, Marianne and the three girls were released from the camp and returned to their home in Amsterdam. Meanwhile, Esther joined her husband in Apeldoorn and worked as a housekeeper there. None of them considered going into hiding.
On 22 January 1943, the Germans liquidated the psychiatric institution in Apeldoorn and deported the 1,200 patients and 50 of the staff members. Some of the staff, including Henri and Esther, were not deported to Auschwitz and were sent to Westerbork. Three months later, they were transferred to the Vught concentration camp, and then returned to Westerbork on 3 July. Meanwhile, on 26 May 1943, Esther's parents and sisters were arrested again and brought to Westerbork. Esther saw them before their deportation to the Sobibor extermination camp on 20 July. No one on this transport survived. Esther and Henri remained in Westerbork.
By September 1943, most of the Jews of the Netherlands had been deported to the East. On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, 29 September 1943, some 2,000 Jews were arrested in Amsterdam, including the members of the Jewish Council and their leaders, and were sent to Westerbork, such that the council ceased to exist. Henri's parents, Hendrina and Joseph Asscher were amongst those arrested. Henri's sister, Los, was living in hiding under an assumed identity together with her husband, Joop-Jacob Van Amerongen in the southern Netherlands.
On 1 February 1944, a deportation train left Westerbork bound for the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Joseph and Hendrina, their son Henri and daughter-in-law Esther were on the train. They were imprisoned in the camp for over a year. Between 6-10 April 1945, days before the liberation of Bergen-Belsen by the Allies, three trains carrying some 7,000 Jews in total left the camp bound for the Terezin ghetto. The first train was liberated by the Allies. The second arrived at Terezin on 21 April. The third train, later known as "The Lost Train" never reached its destination. After some two weeks of traveling, the train stopped on a destroyed bridge on the Elster river, and was liberated by the Red Army on the outskirts of the German village of Tröbitz on 23 April. Esther and Henri Asscher were amongst those on "The Lost Train". On 16 April, Henri died of starvation and exhaustion on the train, near Hagenow, approximately one week before liberation. The corpses were buried next to the railway tracks. Esther survived. Henri's parents were also murdered. His sister Los and her husband survived. Esther's grandmother, Adèle, and two of her aunts, Miriam and Clara (author Clara Asscher-Pinkhof) survived and immigrated to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine).
In late June 1945, the survivors were brought in trucks from Tröbitz to Leipzig, and from there back to the Netherlands. Esther reached Eindhoven, where she stayed with her sister-in-law Los and her husband Joop (later Levia and Jacob). In a letter that she sent from the Netherlands to her grandmother and aunts in Eretz Israel, she wrote:
6 August 1945
Regarding all the trials and tribulations I went through – I have no desire to write about that, not just for your sakes, but because it makes me feel bad. Today I've been thinking about Hans [Henri], because today is our third wedding anniversary. He passed away on 3 Iyar [16 April 1945]. He didn't suffer, apart from what we all experienced on the train, which was not easy! […] I will not write about the significance of Hans's death, as that is obvious.
In 1946, Esther immigrated to Eretz Israel. She remarried and settled in Kibbutz Ein Hanatziv.
![Photograph of Henri-Abraham on the Joodse Raad (Jewish Council) card confirming that he worked at the psychiatric institution, "Apeldoornsche Bosch".](https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/09_130.jpg "Photograph of Henri-Abraham on the Joodse Raad (Jewish Council) card confirming that he worked at the psychiatric institution, "Apeldoornsche Bosch".")
![Document issued by the Amsterdam Jewish community, confirming the marriage of Henry-Abraham Asscher and Esther-Rosa Pinkhof, issued on 12 August 1942 [the wedding was on 6 August]](https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/08_159.jpg "Document issued by the Amsterdam Jewish community, confirming the marriage of Henry-Abraham Asscher and Esther-Rosa Pinkhof, issued on 12 August 1942 [the wedding was on 6 August]")
