Mozes Cohen, dealer of consumer goods, was a son of Lazarus Cohen and Vogeltje Muller. He married Betje van Gelder, an office clerk, in Den Haag on 5 September 1930, a daughter of the goldsmith and jeweler Salomon van Gelder and Fijtje Fruitman. The couple Cohen-van Gelder had three children, namely Louis (Loetje) in 1931, Hans in 1932 and Maurits in 1934. Louis and Hans were killed in the Shoah, only Maurits has survived the Holocaust.
Mozes Cohen, born in Amsterdam, lived there untill 1925 and moved then to Den Haag and in December 1930 to Rotterdam. After his wedding he lived in Rotterdam with his wife, where also his children were born. In July 1936 the family moved again from Pendrechtstraat 3b in Rotterdam to Den Haag, where Mozes and Betje went to live at separate addresses.
The marriage of Mozes and Betje ended by divorce on 22 April 1937, presumably due to the huge age difference of 33 years. In 1939 the children were placed at the “Berg Stichting” in Laren, a Jewish home for children of poor families whose parents were deprived of parental power or divorced. By order of the Germans the Berg Stichting in Laren was abolished in 1942 and by the engagement of the former director Jan Reitsema, children and staff were accomodated on Rapenburg 92-96 in Amsterdam, where the Salvation Army the buildings has made available.
Mozes Cohen lived at Obrechtstraat 556 in Den Haag, when he was sent to Camp Westerbork, from where he was deported to Auschwitz on 19 October 1942 and upon arrival there on 22 October 1942 immediately killed.
His ex-wife Betje van Gelder was killed in Sobibor on 7 May 1943; his son Louis in Auschwitz on 29 January 1944 and his son Hans on 19 November 1943 in Auschwitz too.
City archive of Rotterdam - family registration card of Mozes Cohen; Municpal Archive of Den Haag – family registration card of Mozes Cohen; file cabinet of the Jewisch Council, registration cards of Mozes Cohen, Betje van Geder, Louis and Hans Cohen, website http://www.joodsamsterdam.nl/rapenburg-92-96-bergstichting/ and an addition of a visitor of the website.