Maurits Beer was born on 6 March 18093 as a son of Nathan Hermanus Beer and Paulina Scheffer. When ne no longer lived at home and still was unmarried, Maurits lived in with Kijzer at Nieuwe Prinsengracht 64 and per 18 August 1911 with Hartogs at Utrechtsestraat 30. Maurits was employed as a shop-assistant.
Maurits married in Amsterdam on 14 August 1919 to Nanette Salomons (usually called Nanny), a daughter of Simon Salomons and Sprins Wagenaar. She was born in Amserdam on 1 October 1892. After the marriage was concluded the couple moved into living space with Salomon de Brave at Commelinstraat 18.
Maurits and Nanette had two sons, viz. Paul on 22 October 1920 and Simon on 7 August 1922. But still before the birth of Simon, the family moved on 16 February 1922 to Nieuwe Keizersgracht 66 and on 26 February 1932 to Afrikanerplein 5 in Amsterdam-East.
After Maurits stayed in Leeuwarden for a short time in 1932, the family moved to the city of Groningen on 7 September 1933 and where they moved to Korreweg 210a on May 15, 1936, and Maurits was now working as a representative at the Men's Clothing Factory of the Gebr. Levie in Groningen.
In the first week of October 1942, the entire family of Maurits Beer fell victim of a large raid in Groningen. They were caught and carried off to Westerbork, where they arrived between 3 and 5 October 1942, whereafter the family was housed in various barracks. Until his deportation, Maurits stayed in Barack 59 and 61 and his wife Nanette in barack 65. Paul ended up in barracks 59 and 62 and his brother Simon in barracks 68 and 64. They were not put on transport to Auschwitz untill 14 September 1943.
Maurits Beer and his wife Nanette Salomons however were deported to Auschwitz on 10 November 1942. This transport contained 758 deportees in total, of whom 180 boys and men, aged between 15 and 50 years, were forced to leave the deportation train during a stop-over at Cosel, which is located ±80 km west from Auschwitz. They were put to work as forced laborers in the surrounding labor camps in Upper Silesia.
Those who remained in the train, were transported onwards to Auschwitz, where mostly all were gassed immediately upon arrival. This also was the fate of Nanette Beer-Salomons; she was murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau on 13 November 1942.
Maurits Beer however belonged to a group of 180 men who in Cosel with brute force had to leave the train. The route followed by most of the transport i.e. the camps in which they stayed successively were St. Annaberg, Johannsdorf, Klein Mangersdorf, Oderberg, Malapane, Seibersdorf, Blechhammer and some to the Gross-Rosen resort.
With regard to the transport of 10 November 1942, of which Maurits Beer was part of and was forced to leave the deportation train in Cosel: post-war research by the Red Cross concluded that unless it appears otherwise in individual cases and taking into account the stated general conclusions of the investigation, the men from the transport of 10 November 1942 from Westerbork who disembarked in Cosel, must be considered to have died after 13 November 1943, but no later than 31 March 1944 in one of the labor camps in Silesia (Poland).
After the war, the Dutch Authorities determined, partly based on research by the Red Cross, that Maurits Beer could no longer be alive after 31 March 1944. The Municipality of Groningen was then instructed to draw up a death certificate for him, which states that Maurits Beer died on 31 March 1944 in Central Europe.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Maurits Beer, archive card of Paul Beer; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Maurits Beer, Nanette Beer-Salomons and of Paul and Simon Beer; the archive of the Red Cross/publication Auschwitz III, edited October 1952/the Cosel period; the Wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl; additions of a visitor of the website and additional information of a surviving familymember.