Jacob van Leeuwen, born 2 January 1911 in Den Haag, was a son of Alexander van Leeuwen and Veronica Pos. He was married in Den Haag on 5 August 1936 to Bella Stern, who was born on 3 March 1911 in Burghaun Germany. The couple had three children, namely Alexander, Rosa Veroncia and Mozes. All three the children survived the war and they were with an uncle in the Dibbetsstraat 63 in Den Haag on 3 December 1946.
Bella lived in Frankfurt till 1934 and arrived in Den Haag on 13 January 1934, where in the beginning she found room with Levisson in the Nieuwstraat 12.
Jacob was a butcher by trade. When he married Bella in 1936, they moved into a house in de Adelheidstraat 48 at Central Bezuidenhout in Den Haag, where their first son Alexander was born. The family then moved on 20 September 1938 to the Van Heurnstraat 27 in Voorburg where their daughter Rosa Veronica and their third child Mozes were born.
From data of the registration cards of Jacob van Leeuwen and Bella Stern is to deduct that the Van Leeuwen family must have been gone into hiding, but probably not together. Presumably by treason Jacob and his wife Bella were arrested at the end of 1943 or in the early days of January 1944 as they ended up in Westerbork on 28 January 1944. There they were locked up in the penal barrack 67. On 8 February 1944, they were deported to Auschwitz in a so-called “penal transport”.
On arrival there on 11 February 1944, Bella van Leeuwen-Stern was immediately killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. On the other hand, Jacob van Leeuwen was selected and put to work as a forced labouerer. He lost his life eventually on 30 June 1944 somewhere in Mid Europe.
Sources include the Municipal Archive of Den Haag, family registration cards of Jacob van Leeuwen and Bella Stern; the file cabinet of the Jewish council, registration cards of Jacob van Leeuwen, Bella van Leeuwen-Stern and Alexander, Rosa Veronica and Mozes van Leeuwen; and the Wikipedia listing of jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl