The arrest of Lion Mordechai Wagenaar is described in the book by G. Meerhoek: Servants of the Authority. The Amsterdam police and the German occupation, Amsterdam 1999, (Dienaren van het gezag. De Amsterdamse politie en de Duitse bezetting) pages 302 and 303, partly taken from the pages mentioned:
In the spring of 1943, Kriminalkommisar W.J.Horak had to guard two Jewish families, who had been arrested at the beginning of an investigation in Friesland (Joure). He had housed them in the hotel-restaurant “De Gerstekorrel” in the Damstraat in Amsterdam and given them house arrest there. They had managed to save their lives by providing Horak with information about a wanted person and by promising him a large sum of money from their Swiss bank account. In return, Horak had promised them a free exit to that country.
At the beginning of February 1943, a daughter of one of the parents who had already been arrested, met a Jewish boy, Lion Wagenaar, who was wandering through the Netherlands and had thus avoided deportation. When her parents forbade her contact with this boy, the girl fled the hotel in Amsterdam with him. The two moved from city to city without a yellow star and under an assumed name until they found refuge at the Veluwe.
After a month, the Amsterdam police inspector H.J. Moll nevertheless managed to arrest them based on a tip from an informant. Both were held in a cell at the police headquarters, the girl, to prevent escape, Wagenaaar to be taken to Westerbork and beyond. After two weeks, the boy made an unsuccessful suicide attempt. A month later he was transferred to the Office Jewish Affairs (bureau Joodse Zaken). He ended up in Westerbork, but managed to escape after a short time and went to Amsterdam.
The head of the Special Division of the National Criminal Investigation Center, the German Kriminalkommisar W.J. Horak ordered an investigation. On 12 May (1943). Wagenaar was arrested on the Nassaukade by Amsterdam detectives. The next day he was handed over to the Office Jewish Affairs, which sent him back to Westerbork. The girl and her family reportedly ended up safely in Switzerland after paying a ransom. Lion Wagenaar died in Auschwitz.
A copied and somewhat clarifying story by the editors of the Digital Jewish Monument as published on page 302 from the book “Servants of the Authority” (Dienaren van het Gezag) by Guus Meershoek, which, however, does not correspond to the data found on, among others, the Jewish Council registratifon cards of Lion Mordechai Wagenaar, his deportation on April 6, 1943 from Westerbork and his Amsterdam death certificate no. 588 from the A-register 8 – folio 100 of 27 January 1950, in which his death in Sobibor is established on 9 April 1943.
This story of 7 April 2016 was updated 20 March 2024.