The Kon family, consisting of Mosiek Markus Kon, born in Plock, Poland in 1878, his wife Chana Dydakov, born in Biezun, Poland in 1882, and their children Hersz, Icek, Estera Brana, Cyon and Szymon, all born in Plock in Poland, arrived from Plock in Amsterdam in July 1931.
After their settling in Amsterdam, where in the beginning they have lived at different addresses, their children got married and left their parental home to build a family in their own home. Early December 1932 the family moved to Blasiusstraat 58 parterre and on 28 August 1935, Mosiek Markus and Chana Kon moved to house nr. 46 parterre, where they continued to live until their arrest and deportation to the death camps.
Cyon Kon married 28 October 1942 in Amsterdam Esther Agsteribbe, aged 22, seamstress by trade and daughter of Mozes Agsteribbe and Margaretha Bierman. After they were wed, Cyon moved in with his parents-in-law in the Vaalrivierstraat 8 parterre in the Transvaal District of Amsterdam, who lived there with their daughter Esther and son Abraham since 1935. Cyon was leather worker, but since 1941 he was “without trade”. Up from 1 September 1942 Cyon was employed by the Jewish Council in the Department General Service at Nieuwe Keizersgracht 58. He and his wife were therefore provisionally exempted from deportation “because of function”.
Just married and still in their honeymoon, Cyon and Esther were carried off to Westerbork on 13 November 1942 and registered there on 14 November. On 13 November 1942 the Sperre was extended through a stamp in his personal I.D. and Cyon obtained a personal exemption on 16 November from Aus der Fünten (R.A.F. Rückstellung Aus der Fünten).
Despite the exemption, on 30 November 1942, Cyon Kon and his wife Esther Agsteribbe were deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz. This transport was the so-called 'Kattenburg' transport (with 367 Jewish employees of the Amsterdam clothing factory Hollandia Kattenburg), but also a so-called Kosel transport. During a stop at the freight station of the of Kosel, located ± 80 km west of Auschwitz, 170 boys and men between 15 and 50 years old were forced to leave the train. They were then employed as forced laborers in the surrounding Auschwitz labor camps.
However, those, who remained in the train were transported onwards to Auschwitz to be killed there. That was the fate of Esther Kon-Agsteribbe, 22 years of age; on arrival there on 3 December 1942 she was immediately killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Cyon Kon however belonged most likely to the group of 170 persons who had to leave the train in Kosel. It is not known where Cyon ended up eventually , nor the exact date when and where he has lost his life. Therefore, the Dutch Ministry of Justice ordered the Municipality of Amsterdam after the war to draw up a certificate of death for Cyon Kon, in which has been established that he has died on 31 March 1944 in Mid-Europe.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, archive cards of Mosiek Markus Kon, Cyon Kon and Esther Agsteribbe; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Cyon (Lyon) Kon and Esther Agsteribbe; the website jodenstransporten vanuit Nederland.nl and the death certificate for Cyon Kon, made out in Amsterdam on 18 January 1952, nr. 491 from A-reg. 92-folio 83v..