Levie and Godfried Dekker were the sons of Jacob Dekker and Hinderina van Dam. Both were born in Amsterdam, but moved with their parents to Haarlem. On 10 April 1930 the family returned to Amsterdam and lived at Nicolaas Witsenkade 24. On 1 May 1933 they moved with their parents to Minervalaan 8 and on 3 March 1936 to Ruysdaelkade 22 1st floor.
The archive card of Jacob Dekker from the City archive of Amsterdam shows that Levie and Godfried Dekker were unsubscribed from the Amsterdam Register of Population per 30 December 1942 with the mention V.O.W. ("Vertrokken, Onbekend Waarheen", meaning “Left, Unknown Where to"). In other words: they went into hiding to escape persecution by the Germans. Both were students: one studied law and the other medicine. They ended up in Hellendoorn where they were able to go into hiding with the Grobbink family. They were known there as Lou and Fred.
The day of 14 October 1944, also known as the day of the "Salland raid", when the Germans held a large-scale manhunt in the countryside from Holten to Haarle and Heeten, looking for people in hiding, dozens of men were arrested and then employed for the Germans.
That 14th of October, Levie and Godfied Dekker stayed in a summerhouse in the forests at the foot of the Hellendoornse Berg. During that raid, they were discovered and as Jews immediately shot dead. Their bodies were only discovered in the woods two weeks later, on 29 October 1944 after which they were buried in the General Cemetery of Hellendoorn.
On 11 November 1945 the Jewish Funeral Organization from Amsterdam has submitted a request to the Municipality of Hellendoorn for excavation and transfer of the bodies of Levie and Godfried Dekker to the Jewish Cemetery in Diemen where both the brothers have been reburried there in an own grave. Their parents survived the Shoah.
Sources: City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration- and archive card of Jacob Dekker; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Levie Dekker and Godfried Dekker; the Historical Society of Hellendoorn, newsletter of December 2015; local newspapers and citations from the book “Stampende Laarzen” (1981) (Stamping Boots) by Willem Poorterman.