Mozes van Kleef was a son of Salomon van Kleef and Saartje van Dam who was born in Amsterdam on 16 July 1915. Mozes was an upholsterer and wallpaperer. He married Lena van West on 18 October 1939, who was born in Amsterdam on 16 May 1916 as the daughter of Hartog van West and Bloeme van West. Moses and Lena had no children.
After they were married, they moved into living quarters at Amstellaan 11, 3rd floor, a lodging with Michel Coronel's family, but moved on 18 July 1941 to Waverstraat 85, 3rd floor. Before their marriage, Mozes lived in the Rapenburgerstraat 35 ground- and 1st floor with his parents and Lena in the Tweede Boerhaavestraat 13 3rd floor with her mother Bloeme van West.
The registration card from the Jewish Council file cabinet of Mozes van Kleef shows that he was in a labor camp near Dalfsen. At the time, that was the Jewish Labor Camp "De Vecht", built ±1937, located between the Rechterense Dijk and the railway line, just outside Dalfsen in the direction of Vilsteren. The history of this labor camp shows that on 25 April 1942, 123 Jewish unemployed men from Amsterdam arrived in "De Vecht", which also included Mozes van Kleef.
When “De Vecht” and all other Jewish labor camps were liquidated on Yom Kippur 1942 (3 October 1942), and all forced laborers from all those camps were transferred to Westerbork, Mozes van Kleef must also have arrived in Westerbork around that date. A note indicating this was: “Man was in camp Dalfsen. Now in Westerbork. Wife is exempted from deportation. Photocopy in Westerbork”. Another note on his card of 20 October 1942 read: Letter from (Arthur) Heidenheim to give notice where man works, as he was assigned to staff in Westerbork 28-10-42.
It is questionable whether all these notes would have worked out favorably for Mozes van Kleef, because already on 23 October 1942 Mozes was deported to Auschwitz. This transport, with a total of 988 deportees, made a stopover in Cosel, located ±80 km west of Auschwitz, where 170 boys and men between 15 and 50 years old were forced to leave the train to be deployed as forced laborers in the surrounding labor camps in Upper Silesia. It is almost certain that Mozes van Kleef belonged to this group.
It is not unlikely that Mozes van Kleef eventually ended up in Blechhammer (see also “More about the transport of 23 October 1942”). But his exact date of death is not known. Therefore, after the war, the Dutch authorities determined, partly on the basis of testimonies of survivors and research, that Mozes van Kleef could no longer be alive after 31 March 1944. The municipality of Amsterdam was then instructed to draw up a death certificate for him, which states that Mozes van Kleef died on 31 March 1944 in Mid Europe.
Sources include Amsterdam City Archives, archive cards of Lena van West and Mozes van Kleef; residence card of the Amsterdam Amstellaan 11 III; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Lena van Kleef-van West and Mozes van Kleef; Publication of October 1952 by the Dutch Red Cross Auschwitz III - the Cosel period; the Wikipedia list of Jews transports from Nederland.nl and the death certificate for Mozes van Kleef, drawn up in Amsterdam, no. 172 dated 25 January 1952 from the A-register 93-folio 30v.
• Arthur Heidenheim was an employee of the camp section of the Jewish Council at Oude Schans, and an employee of kin support.