Alexander Leon Root was a son of Mozes Root and Leentje Frank. He was born 30 April 1892 in Amsterdam and married Esther Fransman on 25 July 1918 in Zaandam. She was born 19 November 1895 in Amsterdam as daughter of Salomon Fransman and Elisabeth Ossedrijver. The Root-couple had three children, namely Maurice in 1919, Salomon in 1920 and Aron in 1923. Mother and children have survived the Holocaust.
Alexander Leon Root was a shopkeeper and sold ready made gents fashion. With his family he lived at Nieuwe Prinsengracht 16 parterre in Amsterdam but his business was established at Nieuwe Hoogstraat 3 in the centre of Amsterdam.
During the first months of 1942 Alexander Leon Root was called up and employed in the Jewish labor camp Gijsselte in Drenthe, where since January 1942 the first unemployed Jews were sent to since January 1942. Alexander stayed there in room 5 and the circumstances there were tolerable. Nevertheless, these labor camps turned out to be a portal to deportation to Westerbork and the extermination camps in the East; on 3 October 1942 – on Yom Kipur – all Jewish labor camps were “emptied” by the Germans and all deployed Jews were moved to Westerbork, on foot or by train. So Alexander Leon Root too ended up on 3 October 1942 in Westerbork where he was accommodated in barrack 62.
In the meantime, his son Maurice had received on 27 July 1942 a so-called “Sperre”, an exemption from the Jewish Council; he was a tailor and a good craftsman and worked in the PIGOL Building at Muiderstraat 21 at the “KleRa” (Clothing Repair), where he co-taught vocational education at the M.B. Nijkerkschool, which was established there from September 1941.
On 4 August 1942, his father’s business was classified as a “Joods Lokaal” (Lok.A) (Jewish Local), which led to it that only Jews were allowed to visit his father’s shop.Maurice then was exempted from deportation until further notice. Not much later, Maurice was transferred to de Expo department of the Jewish Council (Expositur), which was located elswhere in Amsterdam.
Due to the classification of his business as Jewish Local and his son’s exemption from deportation (Sperre), Alexander Leon Root submitted an request on 20 October 1942 from Westerbork, to obtain an exemption stamp as well, and for this purpose sent a copy of his call for employment (?) to the Expo department of the Jewish Council. It all did not help; Alexander was deported with the last transport of the year 1942 from Westerbork to Auschwitz on 12 December 1942, where he was immediately murdered on arrival there on 15 December 1942.
Sources among others: City Archive of Amsterdam, archive card of Alexander Leon Root; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration card of Alexander Leon Root, Esther Fransman, Maurice, Salomon and Aron Root; the booklet Probably transported ty Raymond Schütz; website joodsamsterdam.nl/Muiderstraat/PIGOL; the Wikipedia list of jodentransportenvanuitNederland.nl and the website archieven.nl/Expositur.