Jozef Levie, a son of Salomon Gerson Levie and Siphora Polak, was born on 15 January 1875 in Smilde (Drenthe). He was a cigar maker, became a cigar manufacturer and in later years owned agencies. He married Bertha Blumenthal on 3 December 1905 in Groningen, who was born in Winschoten on 27 August 1871, the daughter of Selig Sandel Blumenthal and Henriette Polak.
The Levie-Blumenthal couple lived in Assen, where 3 of their 4 children were born. Only Salomon was born in Groningen after moving from Assen. The four children of Jozef and Bertha were Siphora Henriette on 24 July 1907, followed by Siegfried Gerson on 18 July 1910 and lastly Salomon on 13 January 1913. Siegfried Gerson died on 8 September 1910, aged 7 weeks; on 23 January 1913. Salomon died just 10 days old. The first child, a boy, was stillborn in Assen.
Siphora Henriette Levie, married Jozeph Frank and she had two children with him. Siphora and her two children were murdered in Auschwitz on 23 August 1942, while her husband Jozeph Frank was put to work in Auschwitz after arrival and died there on 10 October 1942. (However, his official and legal date of death was determined after the war by the Ministry of Justice on 30 September 1942).
Bertha Blumenthal died on 11 July 1913 and she was buried at the Jewish Cemetery location Iepenlaan in Groningen. Jozef Levie remarried on 1 September 1916 in Lochem with Elisabeth Fortuin, a daughter of Jacob Fortuin and Grietje van Kleef. Elisabeth was born there on 5 August 1882.
The Levie-Fortuin couple lived at Lorentzlaan 7 in Groningen and had three children, the first of which was stillborn on 2 June 1917. Then another Salomon was born on 19 September 1918 and Margaretha Reina on 15 February 1923.
Salomon Levie worked as a warehouse clerk, later as a traveling salesman, married at the age of 23 in Groningen on 20 August 1942 with the 18-year-old Henderika Bohemen, who was born there on 29 April 1924 as the daughter of Mozes Bohemen and Leida Velleman. Both were brought into Westerbork on 10 October 1942 and deported to Auschwitz via Cosel on 16 October. Salomon ultimately died on 31 July 1943 in the Silesian labor camp Malapane, but his wife Henderika Bohemia, to whom he was only married for 2 months, was sent onwards from Cosel to Auschwitz and murdered there upon arrival on 19 October 1942.
Margaretha Reina Levie started her working life as a shop assistant but joined the “Apeldoornsche Bosch” as a apprentice-nurse on 28 July 1941. In the night of 21 to 22 January 1943, the occupying forces very brutally evacuated Het Apeldoornsche Bosch. Nearly 1300 people, patients and staff, are transported to Auschwitz, who are immediately murdered upon arrival on 25 January 1943, including Margaretha Reina Levie.
At the time of the major raids, early October 1942 and the liquidation of the Jewish Labor Camps in the Northern Netherlands in the night of 2 to 3 October 1942, great chaos arose in Westerbork in those days due to the large influx of arrested and people to be deported. Jozef Levie and his wife Elisabeth Fortuin were also taken to Westerbork between 3 and 5 October 1942.
On 23 October 1943, Jozef Levie and Elisabeth Fortuin were deported to Auschwitz, which included a total of 988 victims. In Cosel, located ±80 km west of Auschwitz, 170 boys and men between the ages of 15 and 40 had to leave the train; they were employed as forced laborers in the surrounding labor camps in Upper Silesia. But not 67-year-old Jozef Levie and his 60-year-old wife Elisabeth Fortuin. They were sent onwards Auschwitz and immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau upon arrival there on 26 October 1942.
Sources include website Alle Drenten; website Alle Groningers; Death certificate 756 dated 11 July 1913 from Groningen for Bertha Blumenthal (1871) - GROR1913OV0391; website stenenarchief.nl/record 423/Bertha Blumenthal; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Jozef Levie (1875), Elisabeth Fortuin (1882), Salomon Levie (1918) and Margaretha Reina Levie (1923).