Max van Praag, the son of Arnold van Praag and Frederica Salomons, was born in Amsterdam on 16 June 1925. He was well educated, was in posession of his diploma 5-year business school (HBS) and his practical diploma short hand. Before the was Max was emloyed as an office clerk.
After the compulsory registration of all Jews in the Netherlands in 1941, Max was exempted from deportation for the time being. Per 20 July 1942 he got this job with the Jewish Council as an “errand boy out-of-school youth care” and “gesperrt because of function”.
Max lived with his parents at Reggestraat 20 1st floor in Amsterdam-South, when they all were arrested on 12 February 1943 and sent to concentrationcamp Vught. His father, Arnold van Praag, his mother Frederica Salomons and Max stayed there till 6 June; his mother was registered there as “masseuse” and his father as a “diamond polisher”.
Together with his parents, the 18 year old Max was transferred from Vught to Westerbork in the night of 6 to 7 June 1943 and they ended up in barrack 62. This tranport became known as the infamous “children transport”. It consited of 613 men, 1350 women and 1051 children till 16 years, among them 242 toddlers and 55 babies and which departed from Westerbork to Sobibor on 8 June 1943.
From notes on the Jewish Council registration card of Max van Praag is to deduct, that he, together with his parents arrived on 7 June 1943 from Vught in Westerbork. But apparently, Max managed to get back to Amsterdam from there, but it is unknown how. There he succeeded to avoid the Germans until December 1943 without wearing the Jew-star and with a forged identity card. But his parents were included in the transport of 8 June 1943 from Westerbork to Sobibor and were murdered by gassing immediately upon arrival there on 11 June 1943.
Notes on his registration card of the Jewish Council show, that Max was transferred on 9 December 1943 from Amsterdam to Westerbork as a “penal case”. Transportlists from the archives of the Red Cross show that Max was arrested in Amsterdam on 7 December 1943. His arrest was described by the Germans as “Straffälliger Jude die im Zuge der Einzelaktion festgenommen wurde” or “Delinquent Jew who was arrested in the course of an individual operation” (wearing no Jew-star and had a forged I.D).
On 25 January 1944, Max and 947 other victims were put on a so-called “penal-transport” to Auschwitz, where he arrived about 27 or 28 January 1944 and where he got his prisoners number 172975. Max stayed the entire year of 1944 in Auschwitz III-Monowitz at the Buna Werke till early 1945 the “Large Evacuation Transports” started.
In the period of 18 to 21 January 1945, prisoners were evacuated from the Auschwitz complex to elsewhere by train- and foot tranport. Also Max van Praag was “evacuated” from from Monowitz (Auschwitz III), by train to Buchenwald, where he arrived on 26 January 1945.
After arriving in Buchenwald, Max was registered as a “Political Dutch Jew”. His “Häflings-Personals-Karte” shows that he received the prisoner number 122337. His aunt Johanna Matteman from Holendrechtstraat 45 in Amsterdam was noted as a his family and his profession was noted as “Sanitäter” (paramedic). This suggests that Max was also employed in Auschwitz upon his arrival there, for example in block 20 or 28 of the prison hospital of Auschwitz I or in the Häflingskrankenbau of Monowitz, which, however, cannot be confirmed with certainty.
Max van Praag died on 22 February 1945 in Buchenwald. The cause of death was described as "sepsis by Phlegmone left upper arm" or "blood poisoning (sepsis) and a severe purulent infectious inflammation (such as gas gangrene) in the left upper arm."
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Arnold van Praag; archive card of Max van Praag; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration card of Max van Praag; the archives of the Red Cross, transport list penal cases Amsterdam-Westerbork of 9 December 1943 with Max van Praag; Wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl/transport 25 January 1944; Red Cross research and publication “Auschwitz VI – the Large Evacuation Transports” edited March 1952; website Archiwum/archives of Museum and Memorial Auschwitz-Birkenau/info about Max van Praag Nummernbuch/Auschwitz III-Monowitz-Buna Werke; website ITS Arolson/various Buchenwald documents regarding Max van Praag, among others his Häftlings-Personal Karte ;and Buchenwald Totenbuch, and his certificate of death nr. 110 made out in Amsterdam on 7 December 1950 from the A-register 60-folio 20.