Aron van West, usually named Ab, was a son of Joseph van West and Gracia Rodrigues Pereira. He was born on 18 June 1908 in Amsterdam and at his birth was his parental home in the Nieuwe Kerkstraat 70 2nd floor. Aron had an one-year elder brother Emanuel, who was called Willem and a younger sister Klara, about one year younger than Ab.
Aron van West was in books. He had a job at the book- and printstore Emmering in Amsterdam, who had also an antiquarian bookshop. But he did not like it there and wanted to start his own antiquarian bookshop. He therefore had to buy books on auctions and needed money for that. A German, to whom he was acquainted – probably a business relation of bookstore Emmering – had money and he was prepared to finance his business aspirations. This German relation arrived in Amsterdam with his wife at Johannes Vermeerstraat, but in retrospect this man appeared to have no money. So the money had to come from elsewhere: thus from Ab’s parents.
Meantime Aron van West had become a independent bookseller and he was engaged to Juliette Barmes, who was born on 11 Januaary 1913 as a daughter of Joseph Barmes and Lucie Rueff. They married on 30 December 1936 in Amsterdam and moved then into a house in the Uithoornstraat 11 in Amsterdam-South, where they runned a bookshop and a library and they had also an agency of the N.I.W. (New Israelitic Weekly). On 7 September 1939, after Ab had sold the bookshop, he moved with his wife Juliette and the 4-month old first born daughter Gracia (Grace), to the Curacaostraat 18 2nd floor, near the Surinameplein in Amsterdam-West. He then got this job as a book seller in the bookshop of the “Arbeiderspers (AP)” (Labour Press) in the Jan Evertsenstraat and his wife Juliette in 1941 became depot holder of the Joodsche Weekblad (Jewish Weekly), which had become the obligatory and official mouthpiece of the Jewish Council, as the Germans had ordered.
On 6 August 1942, Aron van West has been arrested during a raid in Amsterdam and brought into the Hollandsche Schouwburg. His chief, Mr. Van Eugen had good connections and has tried to get him out of the Schouwburg the next day, but it appeared that Aron already was transported to Westerbork that same night, and immediately deported on 7 August to Auschwitz. On arrival there he the 10th of August, he was deployed as forced labourer. The Sterbebücher from Auschwitz (Death books) have revealed that Aron van West has been murdered there on 21 August 1942. (read also the 4th story).
The circumstances there were inhumane and after the war, it was not known when exactly and under what circumstances Aron van West had lost his life. Therefore the Dutch Ministry of Justice ordered the City of Amsterdam to draw up a certificate of death for Aron van West, in which is established that he has died in Auschwitz on 30 September 1942.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Joseph van West and Aron van West, archive cards of Aron van West and Juliette Barmes; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration card of Aron van West; wikipedia list of jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl, the certificate of death for Aron van West, nr. 140 dated 4 Aug 1950 from the A-register 45, folio 25 and informative additions by the widow of Aron van West.