Jacobus de Leeuw, wholesaler in meat by profession, was the youngest son of Abraham de Leeuw and Betje Zeehandelaar. He married 15 December 1921 in Amsterdam Maria Wolff, a daughtrer of David Wolff, a commissioner from Nijmegen and Clara Jessurun Lobo from Amsterdam. Jacobus and Maria had two children, namely David in 1923 and Betty in 1930. The family lived at Rijnstraat 76 1st floor in Amsterdam.
Maria Wolff and her daughter Betty de Leeuw have survived the Holocaust. Maria Wolff passed away on 7 May 1989 in Amsterdam, at the age of 92 years. If not Jacobus and his son David. They were employed in 1942 in the Jewish labor camps. David in the labor camp “De Landweer” in the Elso, (municipality of Ooststellingwerf) in the province of Friesland and Jacobus in the labor camp “Diever A” in Diever in the province of Drenthe.
The Jewish labor camps in the Netherlands were camps for Jews during the Second World War. The camps turned out not to be labor camps but small-scale concentration camps for further deportation of the Jews. In the night of 2 to 3 October 1942 (during Yom Kippur) most of the labor camps were surrounded by the “Ordnungspolizei”. The next morning, the Jewish forced laborers were transported to Westerbork, on foot, by lorry or by train, with the pretext of family reunification and next from Westerbork deported to the extermination camps.
This is how Jacobus de Leeuw and his son David arrived on 3 October 1942 in Westerbork where they stayed for two weeks, waiting for reunion with their Amsterdam family, namely his wife Maria Wolff and daughter Betty. Maria was inclined to follow up on the call for "family reunification" and go to Westerbork to join her husband and son, but the then 12-year-old daughter Betty absolutely not. Maria gave in to her daughter's wish not to go and both went into hiding. Through neighbors and veiled messages they have tried to inform Jacobus and David that they would not come to Westerbork, but they never have known whether their messages have reached them.
Maria de Leeuw-Wolff and her daughter Betty stayed in hiding for over 2 ½ years in a building of a tobacco trade in the Amsterdam street named “Nes”. After the war, they both "turned up" and temporarily lived with a family in the Geleenstraat in Amsterdam. Jacobus and David de Leeuw were however, after two weeks "have waited in vain" for the other half of the family, on 16 October 1942 deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz.
This transport included in total 1710 deportees, of whom 570 boys and men between 15 and 50 years were forced to leave the train during a stop in Kozel, which is located about 80 km west from Auschwitz. These deportees were employed as forced laborers in the surrounding satellite camps of Auschwitz. Those, who remained in the train were transported onwards to Auschwitz to be killed there.
It is not exactly known when and where Jacobus as well his son David have lost their lives. Therefore the Ministry of Justice ordered the City of Amsterdam after te war to draw up certifications of death for Jacobus de Leeuw and David de Leeuw in which their date of death and place were established as on 31 March 1944 in Mid Europe.
Sources among others: City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Abraham de Leeuw and archive cards of Jacobus de Leeuw and Maria Wolff; website wikipedia about the Jewish labor camps and website Herinneringscentrum Westerbork about the Jewish labor camps (among others De Landweer and Diever A), the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Jacobus de Lewuw, Maria de Leeuw-Wolff, David de Leeuw and Betty de Leeuw; the Wikipedia listing of Jew transports from the Netherlands and additional information from Mrs. Betty de Groot-de Leeuw.