Israel Lens

Israel Lens, born 16 February 1896 in Den Haag, was a son of Elkan Lens and Flora Kosman and he was a milkman by profession. On 25 Augusgt 1926 he married in Amsterdam Susanna van Leer, born there on 26 February 1892 and a daughter of Simon van Leer and Sarah Bing. After the wedding in 1926 Israel and his wife Susanna lived at Van der Neerstraat 117 in Den Haag but in 1931 they moved to the Falcks…

Israel Lens died on 18 December 1942 in Reichsautobahnlager Annaberg, Upper Silesia, Germany (today Poland).

The official cause of death: gangrene and general body weakness (Gangraen und allgemeine Körperschwäche).

Source: the official death certificate issued by German authorities (Standesamt).

In addition, a Jokos file (number 31805) on this family is at the Amsterdam Municipal Archive. Access is subject to authorization from the Stichting Joods Maatschappelijk Werk.

Research into the wartime civil registries of one of the civil registry offices in Upper Silesias (Poland) discovered many records that corresponded to deaths of inmates from the "Reichsautobahnlager Annaburg" and "Zwangsarbeitslager Niederkirch" camps.

A certificate of death for Israel Lens as discovered there, stated that he died on 18 December 1942  in Camp Annaberg. In it was mentioned an offi…

The period from 28 August to 12 December 1942 was known as the so-called Cosel period. Deportation trains  made a stopover at the freight station of Cosel, located 80 km west of Auschwitz. During that stop, boys and men who were considered fit for work by the Germans, were usually forcibly separated from their families and taken off the train and put to work in the surrounding labor camps of Upper…