Joseph de Leeuw, director of the NV Metz & Co in Amsterdam, was a son of Hartog de Leeuw and Cato van Norden. 26 May 1904 he married Catharina Schönberg in Amsterdam, a daughter of Levie Schönberg and Henriette van Norden. The couple had three children, of whom Hendrik and Kitty have survived the Holocaust. Only Henriëtte was killed in Auschwitz 7 July 1944.
Joseph's wife Catharina Schönberg passed away 9 October 1930. He married again 17 September 1935 in Bath (GB) to the actress Elisabeth Herzberg, a daughter of Abraham Michael/Michel Herzberg and Rebecca Person (who died 19 May 1938 in Amsterdam).
Elisabeth Herzberg was previously married to the journalist Paul Florus Sanders, from whom she has been divorced 28 August 1935. Their son Benjamin survived the war just as Paul Florus Sanders himself; he left for the USA in 1947.
Joseph de Leeuw and his wife Elisabeth Herzberg belonged to the so called “privileged Jews ” as they occurred on the “Van Dam” listing. 1 March 1943 they were interned in “Camp Barneveld”, but from there sent to Camp Westerbork 29 September 1943 (when also the Jewish Council was liquidated by the Germans). Joseph de Leeuw had to stay in barack 85, (a barack behind barbed wire without any comfort, a dirty pigsty, of which one gets sick of it)*. He was exempted from deportation (gesperrt) because of “function spouse”. (In August 1942 she was “Employee Aid to the Leaving” at Bachstraat 1 in Amsterdam and employed at the burau of Social Affairs at the Jewish Council). Eventually Joseph de Leeuw was deported 4 September 1944 to Theresienstadt where he lost his life 17 October 1944.
His wife Elisabeth Herzberg survived the Shoah and passed at age 98 in Laren. However, at her registration card from the Jewish Council was stated that she was missing in Westerbork 7/8 January 1944**. According a statement of Metz & Co, taken down on her registration card, it became clear that after the war she stayed at St. Jansweg 57 in Laren, in House Leeuwerik. Her father Abraham Michel Herzberg died in Amsterdam 3 February 1941 and was interred in the Jewish Cemetery at Muiderberg.
City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Joseph de Leeuw, Elisabeth Herzberg and Paul Florus Sanders’family registration card of Abraham Michael/Michel Herzberg; website www.wiewaswie.nl , re marriage of Catharina Schönberg; website www.akevoth/mokum/burialpermits re Abraham Michael/Michel Herzberg and the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Joseph de Leeuw and Elisabeth Herzberg.
* About barack 85: see page 446 in "Ondergang" by Dr. J. Presser and his chapter “The Camp Barneveld, up from page 439.
** The reason of the missing was – as “Aunt Lies” has told to her 2nd cousin Michael G. Simons – as follows: I just walked out of Westerbork. I had permission to travel from Westerbork to Amsterdam just to settle some business and I did not return anymore. Then, with help of Victor van Vriesland I went into hiding.
Source: Michael G. Simons the 11th of September 2017.