Lehman de Haaff was a son of the fishmonger Salomon de Haaff and Catharina Schnitzler. He had two other brothers, Nathan Calman, born 15 May 1868 and Andries, who was born 4 May 1884 and also four sisters, namely Elisabeth, born 20 May 1871 in Grimsby in England, Rosa from 1874, Sophia from 1875 and Pauline from 1877, all three born in Rotterdam. Rosa, Sophia and Lehman were killed during the Shoah.
On 31 July 1885, Salomon de Haaff, his wife and children - including thus Lehman - left Rotterdam for Antwerp. They then lived at Kloosterstraat 171 and per 1 January 1919 at Rue de Boston. From September 1908, Lehman lived with his newly wed wife Mietje Wessel at Bolwerkstraat 9 in Antwerp and earned his money as fishmonger too. Lehman de Haaff and Mietje Wessel were married in Amsterdam on 8 August 1906; she was a daughter of Barend Wessel and Klaartje Gompers.
Lehman and Mietje had three children at least, namely Salomon, Bernard and Nathan. As far as known, Salomon and Bernard de Haaff have survived the Holocaust. There even might have been a fourth son, Simon, who after the war in 1947 has made inquiries with the Antwerp authorities about his parents Lehman de Haaff and Mietje de Haaff-Wessel. (see image 571 of Dossier 57864 Antwerp Dossier of Foreigners).
Their son Nathan has been killed in the Shoah, after his efforts to fly to France to escape deportation from Antwerp. He ended up in St. Sauveur de Montagut in the Ardeche region and eventually deported on 4 March 1943 with convoy 50 from Drancy to concentration- and extermination camp Maidanek near Lublin in Poland where he was murdered after arrival there on 5 March 1943. However, a death certificate made out in Belgium, findable in de Foreign Dossier of the City of Antwerp, nr. 57864, Nathan de Haaff would have been killed in 1943 in Auschwitz.
Lehman de Haaff and his wife Mietje Wessel have been deported from Mechelen to Auschwitz on 26 September 1942 with convoy 11. No doubt that on arrival there they were immediately murdered. Their date of death has been established as on 1 October 1942 in Auschwitz
Sources among others City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Lehman de Haaff and Mietje Wessel; City Archive of Rotterdam, peoples registry re Salomon de Haaff (1842); the Dossier of Foreigners of the City of Antwerp, nr. 57862, image 566-590; death certificates B58-1950 for Lehman de Haaff and Mietje de Haaff-Wessel; the Memorial of the Deportation of the Belgian Jews, page 26 and the Memorial de la Shoah re. Nathan de Haaff.