Jon Levie was born in Hamburg on 10 September 1878 as the son of the cigar manufacturer Tanchum (Theodor) Levie who was born in Groningen in 1848 and the Hamburg Hannah Ricardo Rocamore from 1843. The Levie family also consisted of Jon's brothers Iwan (1884) and Abraham (1887) and sisters Sarah (1880) and Lea (1886, all born in Hamburg. However, Sarah Levie passed away in Hilversum om 24 November 1930.
Jon Levie earned his living as a trader in raw tobacco but came to Amsterdam from Germany in 1938 together with his brother Iwan. Also his brother Abraham, who arrived there in 1935 and Lea last in 1939.
On 18 August 1920 Jon Levie married Hertha Goldschmidt in Berlin, who came from Krefeld and was born there on 11 March 1892. She was a daughter of Natan (Louis) Goldschmidt, a shopkeeper in ready-to-wear clothing in Krefeld and Johanna Mayer.
Hertha had two sisters: Irma and Hilde, also born in Krefeld. It is known that Irma survived the Holocaust but nothing else is known about her. The other two came to Amsterdam, Hilde with her husband Abraham Levie and son Joachim Tanchum in 1935 and Hertha, together with her husband Jon Levie in 1938.
On 20 August 1938 Jon Levie and his wife Hertha were registered in the municipality of Amsterdam, where they initially lived with Jon's brother Abraham Levie and his family at Montelbaanstraat 7 and two months later, on 14 October 1938 they moved to Singel 52. On 7 February 1939 they moved into a house at Vossiusstraat 14, where Jon and his wife Hertha became boarding house holders.
One of the boarding house guests was the then 21-year-old Hijman Oudkerk, a son of Levie (Louis) Oudkerk and Selma Hemelrijk, who found living space there on 31 December 1941 but moved again on 7 May 1942 (mandarory) to Krugerplein 32 3rd floor in the Transvaal neighbourhood of Amsterdam-Oost.
At some point, around the end of 1941/beginning of 1942, there were about 9 residents living in the boarding house Vossiusstraat 14, of whom the two boarding house owners themselves and several other residents were arrested and taken to Westerbork in the night of 16 to 17 September 1942.
On 18 September, Jon Levie and his wife Hertha Levie-Goldschmidt and a boarding house guest, the widow of Izak Sanders, Gerla Sanders-Pollak (1891) were already deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz. They were murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau immediately after their arrival on 21 September 1942.
Sources include the Amsterdam city archives, family cards of Jon Levie, archive cards of John Levie and Hertha Goldschmidt; Amsterdam housing cards of Singel 52 and Vossiusstraat 14 house; website Stolpersteine Hamburg/Hertha Goldschmidt and Jon Levie; the archive of the Red Cross/transport lists Amsterdam-Westerbork from 16 to 17 September 1942 with, among others, Jon Levie and Hertha Levie-Goldschmidt; the archive of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Jon Levie and Hertha Levie-Goldschmidt; and the Wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl/transport 18 September 1942.