On December 21, 1894 Levie Preger was born of the Van Alkemadeplein 21a in Rotterdam. He called himself Louis and married on August 6, 1919 in The Hague Sara Swaan (Rotterdam, May 7, 1894).
The couple had five children; Annie (Rotterdam, October 7, 1920 – Sobibor, March 5, 1943), Jonathan (Rotterdam, December 30, 1921 – Wierden, 1979), Herman (Rotterdam, March 23, 1924 – Kiriat Gat, 2001), Helena (Rotterdam, September 20, 1927 – Bolsward, 2009) and Jacques (April 29, 1929 – January 2015).
The family lived on the Boompjes, on the north-bank of the Nieuwe Maas and moved in 1938 to the Gerrit Jan Mulderstraat 89a.
Louis was a principal at the public education in Rotterdam. After the summer holiday of 1941 Jewish children were not allowed to attend non-Jewish schools. Jewish schools were founded for their education.
On the Molenwaterweg 2 Jewish schools were founded, school A 227 and school A 229. Louis was, with miss L. Isaacs, in charge of school A 229.
Besides this it is known that Louis was active in a lot of organizations. He was the leader of the Youth Union Mikwei Jisroeil in Rotterdam, member and board member of various Jewish organizations, he was an active member in the organization to fight alcohol abuse in Rotterdam. From 1918 – until 1941 he was the editor of the magazine “De Marktkoopman”.
Louis had the strong opinion that nobody should report voluntarily for deportation. People should go into hiding and in case someone would be betrayed no-one of a family should be in contact with each other to minimize the change of a whole family being caught. Het survived the war, as four of his children did.
Louis died on July 29, 1964 in Israël and was buried there. In 1993 the Waterklerkstraat in Rotterdam was renamed to Louis Pregerkade.
His daughter Annie was murdered, and she was a student-nurse in “Het Apeldoornse Bosch”, “the Jewish psychiatric facility in Apeldoorn. 1200 patients and 50 members of staff were deported of the 21st and 22nd of January 1943 and brought directly to Auschwitz. When they arrived at Auschwitz they were murdered right away. 100 patients and the rest of the staff members were not taken to Auschwitz, but deported to Westerbork and Annie was one of them.
source:
www.bewonersvereniging-delandtong.nl,
wikipedia,
leeuwarder courant,
with regards to Jacky Pri-Gal (Jacques Preger) for some corrections
illustrations:
with thanks to Judith Preger-Reshef
Last edited:
8 september 2019