Mordechai (Marco) Gandelman tried to flee to Switzerland in July 1942, leaving Amsterdam together with Hartog Cohen (born 3.1.1920).They were living at the same address, Kastanjeplein 3, where probably Hartog's mother held a boarding house. The two young men made it till the Swiss border near Pontarlier and were maybe turned back, though we have no nominal evidence of this. They were arrested in Besançon on July 21. He is registered as «Marko Gandelman». Strangely, the two men appear as «Jews suspected of a (terrorist) attack». They were put into jail in Besançon (Maison d'arrêt de la Butte, German sector) and then transferred by order of the Feldkommandantur 560 to camp Pithiviers on August 8, before being sent to Drancy and later to Auschwitz on August 26 (convoy Nr. 24).
Source: Archives départementales du Doubs, 1409W40.
The list of convoy 24 falsely reads «Gandelman, Garco».
Moreover, as he was a Jewish deportee and not a prisoner of war, Mordechai Gandelman may have died, not at Stalag VIII in Cieszyn (Teschen), but at Kommando Peiskretscham (Pyskowice) in the vicinity. Prisoners of war and Jewish inmates perhaps shared a slave labor in a factory.