Levie Crost was a son of Ephraim Crost and Bloeme Trompetter. He married 31 March 1920 in Zaandam Sophia Zegerius, a daughter of Meijer Hartog Zegerius and Duifje Lap. The couple had two children: Eduard and Max Louis.
Levie Crost was born into a family of seven children, of whom three children have survived the Holocaust. The other four, he himself, Esther, Rachel and Mozes have been killed during the Shoah.
It is not known when the Levie Crost family arrived in Westerbork. Known is however that all of them, namely Levie Crost, his wife Sophia Zegerius and his children Max Louis and Eduard were put on transport to Auschwitz on 14 September 1942. This transport included 902 deportees, of whom 120 boys and men between 15 and 50 years of age were forced to leave the train in Kozel, located about 80 km west from Auschwitz. They were employed as forced laborers in the surrounding satellite camps of Auschwitz. Levie Crost was one of the 120 men who had to leave the train in Kozel. Those who remained in the train were transported onwards to Auschwitz to be killed. On arrival there at 17 September 1942 Sophia Crost-Zegerius was immediately killed. Her sons Max Louis and Eduard probably worked shortly as forced laborers but their official date of death is 30 September 1942.
Levie Crost eventually ended up in the forced labor camp Blechhammer, where the Oberschlesische Hydrierwerke made petrol from coal. It was the largest forced labor camp of the “Organization Schmelt”, a large industrial complex in the former province of Kozel in Upper Silezia, consisting of dozens of different camps with about 50.000 mainly Jewish forced laborers. Camp Blechammer was erected in 1940.
Early April 1944, the Organization Schmelt was dismantled. Afterwards Blechhammer acted as a sub-camp of Auschwitz. In Blechhammer, located in the village of Slawiecice, was built a new chemical plant. Prisoners of the camp were building this plant between April 1944 and January 1945. Afterwards, the camp was evacuated. The camp then counted 385 male (17 January 1945) and about 180 female prisoners (30 December 1944).
City Archive of Amsterdam, archive card of Levie Crost, family registration card of Ephraim Crost and website www.wiewaswie.nl; Wikipedia website about Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland; website Blechammer;
By establishing the date of death of Levie Crostthe official date is maintained as stated after the war by the Dutch Department of Justice.
In a document, which was a protocol of an on-site inspection conducted by Polish judicial authorities in March 1946 at the former camp of Blechhammer and at the mass burials site in the forest near the camp, another date of death for Levie Crost is mentioned namely the 21th of July 1943. According to this protocol there were several still legible wooden markings on some of the graves. The information from the markings were included in the protocol.
In 1958 all remains from the forest cemetery of Blechhammer were exhumed and buried in a common grave at the Community Cemetery in Opole Polwies.
Source: Panstwowe Muzeum, Auschwitz-Birkenau, protocol 6th of March 1946