Ada van Esso
1928-2021
“I worked where we had to do the washing…We had a washing board and you washed. After that, you put it somewhere else and then it was going in the room where they’d be dried. And from there then to a room where it would be fixed. And when we were washing, we tore it…because then there would be work for the people who had to fix it.” – Ada van Esso
Ada van Esso was born on January 3, 1928 in Meppel, Holland to a Jewish family. When she was a young girl, the family moved to Amsterdam because they wanted to be in an area with a larger Jewish population and to be farther from the German border.
After World War II began, Ada’s father planned for the family to escape Holland. He bribed officials to help them escape, but the family was betrayed. They were sent to a prison in Berlin and then deported to Auschwitz in 1943. While in Auschwitz, Ada was assigned to work in the Nazis laundry room. In 1945 the Nazis forced Ada and the other remaining prisoners to evacuate Auschwitz in order to keep the prisoners from falling into the hands of the Allies. These evacuations became known as “death marches” because of the brutal conditions. She was liberated at Ravensbrück Concentration Camp and taken to Sweden to recover.
After the war, Ada returned to Holland and married Hans van Dam. Their daughter, Ine-Marie van Dam was born in Holland several years after and grew up on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao. Ine-Marie van Dam shared her mother’s story as part of the Holocaust Center for Humanity’s Speakers Bureau before her passing in 2025. Ada’s granddaughter, Lisa van Dam Bates, continues to share her story as a member of the Holocaust Center’s Speakers Bureau.
Video Testimony – Ada van Esso
Family Plans
Cattle Cars
In the Laundry
Organizing the Sheet
Dutch vs Polish
Photo Gallery – Ada van Esso
A. van Esso Gallery 1
Ada's mother, Marie, with her sister Rhea and their parents, 1923.
A. van Esso Gallery 2
Ada, 3 years old.
A. van Esso Gallery 3
Ada (left) with her family in Meppel, Holland.
A. van Esso Gallery 4
Leo (Ada's brother) and Ada. December, 1929.
A. van Esso Gallery 5
Ada with her mother and brother Leo, on the street of Meppel, Holland.
A. van Esso Gallery 6
Brother Leo, mother Marie, and Ada at the beach, 1935.
A. van Esso Gallery 7
Ada (far right) with women who were also recovering from the camps in Skatas, Sweden. 1945.
A. van Esso Gallery 8
Ada (back center) in Skatas, Sweden. 1945.
A. van Esso Gallery 9
Ada (left) in front of a plane going from Sweden to Amsterdam, Holland. July 28, 1945.
A. van Esso Gallery 10
Ada and her husband Hans, 1946.
A. van Esso Gallery 11
A. van Esso Gallery 12
Ada, 1948.
A. van Esso Gallery 13
Ada's husband with their daughter Ine-Marie on his shoulders, 1948.
A. van Esso Gallery 14
Ada holding her daughter Ine-Marie up in the air, 1949.
A. van Esso Gallery 15
Ada and Hans in Portland, Oregon. 1964.
A. van Esso Gallery 16
Ine-Marie van Dam and Ada.
A. van Esso Gallery 17
Ada while recording her video testimony.
