Leo Stodel was born on 15 April 1908 in Amsterdam as a son of Jacob Stodel and Elisabeth van Stratum. He had a twin-brother Joseph, who however already died three weeks after his birth. Leo had an older sister Alida and a little sister Josephine, who however died already four days after her birth.
Leo went to school and went through six years of primary education, followed by ULO and two years of evening school. He was a volunteer at the Landstorm to which he was affiliated until 18 January 1928, but the engagement was already terminated on October 20, 1927, after which he was declared as “Extraordinarily Conscript” (BD) at the inspection for the National Militia. Before being inspected for the Militia, Leo worked as a warehouse clerk for woolen fabrics.
During 1934 Leo Stodel stayed in Den Helder from mid-August to the beginning of December. It is not clear whether he already had anything to do with the nearby located Jewish working village (Joods werkdorp) Nieuwesluis in the Wieringermeerpolder near Slootdorp, where young Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria received agricultural vocational training, which should enable them to settle in Palestine. Until then, he worked as a diamond cutter and as a shop assistant. Returning to Amsterdam on 10 December 1934, Leo continued working as a shop assistant but he seemed to want to perpare himself for future emigration to Palestine.
The hachshara was the education for life in Palestine. The hachshara was aimed at living in an agricultural colony, the young people who followed the training were called Palestine pioneers or chalutsim. The training consisted of practical skills for agricultural life, as well as learning Hebrew, the language of communication that was to be used in the country. The young people learned the agricultural trade from farmers all over the Netherlands. (source website Joods Amsterdam). Leo Stodel, for example, stayed in Haaksbergen from 22 January 1935 and in Staphorst from November 1936, and became a “farmer”.
In the meantime Leo had already made acquaintance with Martha Katz, who came to Amsterdam from Regensburg (Germany) on 26 October 1933 and worked as a maid at Abraham Sons at Ruyschstraat 76 2nd floor, where Leo Stodel lived with his parents on the 3rd floor. However, on 16 December 1936, Martha left for The Hague, where she came to live at Johannes Camphuijsstraat 40 in Bezuidenhout-Oost district. After four months she moved to the Van Lansbergestraat 54 and on June 15, 1938 to the Pletterijstraat 66, the Israëlitic Orphanage where she was employed as "maid and seamstress".
Martha Katz, who was born on 19 January 1913 in Regensburg, Germany, as the daughter of Meier Katz and Käthchen Schlossberger, married Leo Stodel in Den Haag on 21 June 1939, who was then still in training as a Palestine Pioneer. In the early spring of 1940, Leo worked as a volunteer farmhand on the farm of the Jansen family in Hummelo. In that period even before the war broke out, his wife Martha Katz visited him for a week, after which she returned to the Pletterijstraat in Den Haag. Shortly after the capitulation of the Dutch army, Leo Stodel also left Hummelo and also returned to Den Haag, where he could work as a stoker and repairman in the Israëlitic Orphanage.
In the late evening of 5 March 1943, the German authorities raided the orphanage. All those present, staff and children, were violently removed from the orphanage and forced to board waiting trucks and transported to Westerbork, including Leo Stodel and his wife Martha Katz, who ended up in the penal barrack 66. Most children and adults were sent on 10 March 1943 to the extermination camp Sobibór, where they were killed in the gas chambers on 13 March 1943. (Source C. Glaudemans / Jewish Heritage Route The Hague).
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Jacob Stodel; residence card Ruyschstraat 76 2nd floor/Sons; Municipal Archive Den Haag, family registration cards of Martha Katz; certificates of death C132 and C142 for Martha Stodel-Katz and Leo Stodel dated 8 December 1949 made out in Den Haag; website Joods Amsterdam/Hachsjara; Dr. Corien Glaudemans, Jewish Heritage route Den Haag/former Jewish Orphanage Pletterijstraat 66; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Leo Stodel and Martha Stodel-Katz and the addition of Mr. Jansen from Hoog Keppel/memory 1940 to Leo Stodel at the farm of his parents at Hummelo.