The second son of Sander Sanders and Esther Morpurgo, Leonard Sanders, was born on 14 May 1904 in Amsterdam. Like his father Sander and his brother Willem, Leonard eventually also became a tailor by profession. However, before that Leonard had already been employed as a warehouse clerk, as a diamond cutter and as a traveler.
On 27 January 1919, Leonard was admitted as an apprentice diamond cutter to the ANDB, the General Dutch Diamond Workers' Union. He was trained by various teachers at five different factories such as Boas, Maatschappij, Rozelaar, Kimberly and Coëlho, and was successfully completed on 21 October 1927 when he formally became a member of the Union in section 2 with membership number 1827.
Until December 1921 he lived at home with his parents, but in the 3rd week of December 1921 he was registered at the address Celebesstraat 46 3rd floor in Amsterdam-East with G. Blom, where a year earlier his brother Willem had also found living space. On 27 April 1922 he lived at Lepelstraat 91, 1st floor, with Joel Wagenhuizen.
Between April 1922 and early October 1931 Leonard lived at about 6 different addresses. He left for Antwerp on 2 October 1931 and returned to Amsterdam on 1 May 1932. He then stayed there at Eerste Boerhaavestraat 9 with his brother Willem and moved with Willem on 17 February 1932 when he moved into a house at Amazonenstraat 23 in the Stadium District of Amsterdam.
Leonard left there again on 8 March 1933 for Antwerp, where he was registered as a traveling salesman. On 3 February 1934, he married the non-Jewish Maria Theresia Leonia Maegh in Antwerp, who was born on 19 September 1905 at Wechelderzande, a village in the Belgian Kemps. They then stayed in the Antwerp municipalities of Borgerhout and Berchem.
However, in 1937, between February and August, Leonard traveled a few times from Borgerhout to Amsterdam vice versa, which suggests that the Sanders couple no longer lived together from that period on. From 1 June 1937, Leonard's wife Maria was deregistered from the population register of Borgerhout and moved to Callensstraat 19 in Berchem and from 4 August 1937, only Leonard was registered at the Amsterdam address Meerhuizenstraat 2 ground floor. It appears that no children were born from this marriage.
From August 1937 to May 1941, only Leonard stayed at twelve different addresses in Amsterdam and earned a living as a tailor. It turned out that his wife was never registered at all those Amsterdam addresses during that period. His last known address, as stated on his registration card from the Jewish Council was at Van Woustraat 193, 2nd floor, where he was registered from 5 May 1941 and where he lived allone.
During the large-scale raids from 3 to 5 October 1942, Leonard Sanders was arrested and taken to Westerbork. At the same time, all Jewish labor camps in the Northern Netherlands were liquidated by the Germans and all Jewish forced laborers were transferred to Westerbork, after which their families were also brought to Westerbork in the context of so-called “family reunification”. It was overcrowded and chaotic in Westerbork and the administration could hardly cope with it all.
Leonard stayed in Westerbork until 19 October 1942, when he was transported to Auschwitz with 1326 other victims. That transport arrived there on 22 October and approximately 677 men between the ages of 15 and 50 were selected for employment, including the then 38-year-old Leonard Sanders.
From the fact that a letter from Leonard Sanders was received from Monowitz (Auschwitz III) on 18 January 1943, it can be assumed that Leonard was selected for employment at the Buna Werke in Monowitz.
After the war, the Dutch Ministry of Justice, partly based on investigations by the Red Cross, determined that Leonard Sanders could no longer have been alive after 28 February 1943. The municipality of Amsterdam was then instructed to draw up a death certificate for him, stating that he died in Auschwitz on 28 February 1943.
However, the surviving death books from Auschwitz (Sterbebücher) have shown that Leonard Sanders was murdered in Auschwitz on 29 December 1942. But the website joodsmonument.nl currently only shows the dates of death, as published by the Ministry of Justice at the time in the Dutch Government Gazette.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Sander Sanders and Leonard Sanders; archive card of Leonard Sanders; website ANDB membership cards/ Leonard Sanders; the Felix archive of Antwerp/Dossiers of Foreigners of Leonard Sanders no’s 20703, 225790 and 2681; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration card of Leonard Sanders; website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl/19 October 1942; death certificate no. 125 from the A-register 61-folio 22verso made out by the Municipality of Amsterdam on 14 December 1950 and the Publication “Auschwitz III”from the Red Cross archives, edited October 1952.