Zunia Erlichman

Zunia (als known as Zacharias) Erlichman was born in Kyiv as a son of Tobias Erlichman and Beila Galinskaia.^[1] Two years after he was born, the family left the Soviet-Union and landed, via Mexico, in Caracas, Venezuela, where a second son, Moyses, was born.^[2] In October 1934, the Erlichmans settled down in Amsterdam, where a third son, Josef, was born in 1935.^[3] Tobias Erlichman was a tailor^[3] and owner of laundry and dry cleaning business on Haarlemmerdijk. On 5  September 1942, he reported a burglary and theft of a batch of laundry.^[4]

Zunia was a student at the HBS secondary school at Jozef Israëlskade 45 in Amsterdam. After the summer holidays of 1941, he was to move up to the second year.^[5] Because Jewish students and teachers were forbidden to attend regular schools as of 1 September 1941, he had to transfer to the Jewish Lyceum. In school year 1941-1942, Zunia was in class 1L2, which also included Anne Frank.^[6] He left the school on 27 April 1942.This is why he did not appear on the list of classmates in Anne's diary on 15 June of that year.^[7] 

Zunia was spotted in Gerard Doustraat without a Jewish star and apprehended by SD officer Klaas Nap at around two o'clock in the afternoon of 26 October 1942, but sent on his way because of his Russian nationality.^[8] But three days later, on 29 October 1942, his case was handled by the 11th Bureau (Jewish Affairs Office) and he was locked up at the Central Criminal Intelligence Unit in Amsterdam. The next day he and three others were taken to the Sicherheitsdienst.^[9] Zunia was deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz on 20 November 1942,^[10] where he perished on 28 February 1943.^[11]

In an oral history interview, Moyses (Max) Erlichman recounted how he, his father and his brother Josef were deported to Westerbork in mid-November 1942. His mother had already been deported to Auschwitz on 18 September 1942,^[12] and was murdered immediately upon arrival on 21 September 1942.^[11] From Westerbork, Tobias and his two sons were sent to Bergen-Belsen on 11 January 1944.^[13] After a nine-week stay in Bergen-Belsen, they were sent to a camp in Wülzburg in Bavaria, where they were liberated by the U.S. Army in March or April 1945. They recuperated in a house provided to them by civilians in Weissenburg in Bavaria, after which they were sent to a camp for displaced persons in Würzburg, from which they returned to the Netherlands on 9 June 1945.^[13] A few years after the war, all three emigrated to the United States.^[2]

Source personal data.^[1] Adresses: Korte Prinsengracht 4, Amsterdam (October 1934), Haarlemmerdijk 110 (January 1935), Goudsbloemstraat 10 II (August 1936), Gerard Doustraat 86 I (October 1937).^[14]