Michael van West was the sixth of the nine children of Salomon van West (1859-1931) and Betje Lelie (1853-1935) and born in Amsterdam on 31 October 1887. Like all his brothers and his father, also Michael van West was a flower dealer by profession. Michael married Saartje Goudsmit on 31 July 1912 in Amsterdam, a daughter of Levie Goudsmit and Hanna Vos and she was born on 6 October 1887 there. At the same time as Michael, his brother Jacob van West (Amsterdam 2 September 1889) also married Saartje’s sister Raatje Goudsmit (Amsterdam, 11 July 1884).
Michael had five brothers and four sisters, all born in Amsterdam. It were Leene, who usually was known as Levie van West and who was born on 17 December 1878. He passed away in Amsterdam just before the outbroke of W.W.II, on 13 March 1940. Then there were Vogeltje, born on 26 March 1880, who was married to Abraham Witteboon; then Barend, born on 26 August 1881, Esther, born on 30 August 1883, Abraham, born on 30 October 1885; Jacob of 2 September 1889, Isaac of 21 August 1891 and the last one was Grietje van West, born on 13 July 1893. However, Grietje died young already on 2 December 1917.
On 1 December 1910, the still unmarried Michael van West left for Belgium and was registered there at the address Krijtstraat 8 in Berchem. According to the statement that Michael made to the Antwerp officials, he planned to stay there for more than six months.
After the marriage of Michael and his brother Jacob van West to Saartje and Raatje Goudsmit respectively, at the end of July 1912, the four of them left for Brussels on 6 August 1912, where they came to live at 31, Rue de L'Ascension.
Nothing is known about the period from August 1912 to 1944 about Michael and his wife Saartje, as well about Jacob and his wife Raatje. However, it is certain that Michael van West and Saartje Goudsmit were arrested in the early spring of 1944 and transferred to the transit camp in Mechelen, Kazerne Dossin. In March of that year, by order of the Central Bureau for National Security, an instruction was issued to urgently proceed to the arrest of Jews.
Michael and Saartje were deported from Mechelen to Auschwitz on 4 April 1944 with convoy 24, which arrived there on 7 April 1944 with 625 victims in total. Of these, 270 were murdered immediately upon arrival in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau; 355 people were registered in the camp, of which 147 were still alive when Auschwitz was liberated.
It is not known whether Michael and Saartje belonged to the group of 290 victims, or to the group of 355 people who were registered. However, it is clear that they did not belong to the 147 people who were able to experience the liberation, but were murdered in Auschwitz after 7 April 1944 or died due to exhaustion, abuse or diseases.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Salomon van West (1856), closed family registration cards re Levie Goudsmit (1847); Felix Archive, Dossier of Foreigners of the City of Antwerp, nr. 137345 – image 479 and 480; website Give them a Face – portait collection and the Memorial of the deportation of the Belgian Jews, the 24th convoy pages 34 and 35.