Willem Wessel was the son of Jacob Wessel and Grietje Trompetter. He studied the violin at the conservatory. Until 1933, however, he worked as a gym teacher. In 1935 he obtained permission to decorate wooden boxes with pyrographic reproductions of works by the artist Jan Toorop and then to sell them. Willem Wessel was married on 16 June 1937.
During the war, Willem Wessel and his wife went into hiding, separately from their only daughter, with a Baptist family in Utrecht. Their daughter went into hiding with a Roman Catholic family in the south of Limburg.The costs they incurred while in hiding were paid for out of the profits from the sales of the pyrographed wooden boxes. At the end of June 1944 Willem Wessel and his wife were betrayed and on 31st July 1944 they were sent to Westerbork and then deported to Bergen-Belsen.
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This person is mentioned in a CABR document of the Dutch Nationaal Archief. The CABR contains detailed information concerning this person’s arrest, inv. nr CABR 64459 + 107990