Jesaja Beek was one of the seven children of Izaak Leon Beek and Matje Mok. His father Izaak was already widowed since 1927 and he himself he passed away in 1935 and was interred in the Jewish Cemetery at Muiderberg.
Jesaja Beek was a commercial agent and pollster and married 30 May 1917 in Amsterdam Vogeltje Frankfort from Amsterdam, born 30 April 1889 as daughter of Hijman Frankfort and Theresia Fransman. The Beek couple had two children, namely Martha in 1919 and Herman in 1922. Of both the children, Herman was murdered on 2 July 1943 in Sobibor but Martha survived the Holocaust.
Jesaja Beek was exempted from deportation (“gesperrt bis auf weiteres“) by the Jewish Council and had a job as “Employee Office Quartering” at Amstel 25 in Amsterdam. Also his spouse Vogeltje Frankfort was exempted from deportation for the time being “because of function of her husband”. Presumably she had been previously registered in Westerbork, just as her daughter Martha and her husband. However, Vogeltje, Martha and her husband were discharged from Weserbork on 17 July 1943 and could return to Amsterdam. Martha and her husband Bertus Max Koen, to whom she was married in March 1942, and her on 31 May 1943 newborn son Alfred Jacques, survived the Holocaust by going into hiding. (in 1946 their daughter Betty Jacqueline was born).
In the summer of 1943, a large proportion of Dutch Jews were deported. This meant that the right to exist of the Jewish Council had been affected in a proportionate way and that many Jewish Council functions and the associated exemptions (Sperres) were abolished. On 24 July however, a transport from Amsterdam with 450 people arrived in Westerbork. Almost all of them were in possession of the famous “Ausnahme-Bescheinigung”, the last exempitons that were issued. On the basis of this paper received less than a month ago, owners of it would be protected against all possible police actions. After the secretly prepared and large-scale raid of 20 June 1943 in Amsterdam, Aus der Fünten was of the opinion that a “small Jewish Council” should still exist. Too soon liquidating everything and all was still not the intention and 170 people were allowed to keep the remainder of the Jewish Council going. Yet it turned out that many more people had obtained such an “Ausnahme-Bescheinigung” than intended, so that a furious Aus der Fünten ordered de SD to fetch a random group of 450 owners of an “Ausnahme-Bescheinigung” to be sent to Westerbork.
Among those 450, there were people who just two weeks earlier of shorter were discharged from Westerbork. Also Vogeltje Frankfort, who was discharged 17 July 1943 belonged to that group and she was brought in 24 July 1943 again in Westerbork where she had to stay in barrack 65. She has been put on transport to Auschwtiz on 21 September and on arrival there on 24 September 1943 she was immediately murdered.
Jesaja Beek, in possession of an “Ausnahme-Bescheinigung no.120100, was eventually taken to Westerbork, where he ended up 29 September 1943 in barrack 64. There he stayed about six weeks till he was deported 16 November to Auschwitz with the last transport of the year due to "train material for Christmas recess militairy and quarantine camp due to polio". On arrival in Auschwitz on 19 November 1943 Jesaja Beek was immediately murdered.
Sources including City Archive , archive cards of Jesaja Beek and Vogeltje Frankfort; website Wikipedia list jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl; Ausnahme-Bescheinigung/ from “Vermoedelijk op transport” by Raymond Schütz and the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Jesaja Beek, Vogeltje Frankfort and Bertus Max Koen.