Willem van West was a son of David van West and Keetje Cohen and he was the second child in a family of 12 children. Willem was born in Amsterdam on 6 April 1887 and he earned his living as a hawker. With his parents and sibs he lived at home in the Tweede Oosterparkstraat 63 in Amsterdam until his wedding to Rosette Kloot. Rosette was born on 18 June 1889 in a family of also 12 children as a daughter of Salomon Kloot and Sara Sluijzer.
The marriage of Willem and Rosette took place in Amsterdam on 23 August 1911 in the presence of the mutual parents and the witnesses and after the wedding was concluded, the newly wed couple moved into living space at Iepenweg 29 in Amsterdam. One year later, on 20 June 1912 their only son David van West was born there.
In November 1926 the family moved to Vrolikstraat 229 and in 1930 to house nr. 75 in the same street but early November 1931 they moved to Rotterdam, where Willem started working as a greengrocer and fruiterer. They came to live at Vriendenlaan 6a in the city centre of the town. Later relocations folowed to Rubroekstraat and to the Crooswijkseweg but on 2 September 1940 they moved into a house at the Nieuwe Binnenweg 295d. One month later, on 2 October 1940 their son David married Gebrielle Gazan, and the young couplet hen found own housing at Nieuwe Binnenweg 295b.
Willem van West and his wife Rosette Kloot were called up on 8 August 1942 for the so-called “Arbeitseinsatz”, the provision of additional work in Germany under police surveilance, but they were temporarily set back from deportation by the Jewish Council. Early October 1942 , they were carried off to Westerbork where they were brought in somewhere between the 3rd and the 5th of that month, and ended up in the chaos of the large scaled round-ups that the Germans then held and the liquidation of the Jewish labor camps, when all Jewish forced laborers ended up in Westerbork at the same time.
Willem and Rosette were put on transport on 6 November 1942 to Auschwitz in a transport of 465 deportees and upon arrival there, they were all immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau. That was also the fate of the 55-year old Willem van West and his 53 year old wife Rosette Kloot
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Willem van West; the City archive of Rotterdam, family registration cards of Willem van West; wedding certificate 582 dated 23 August 1911 Willem van West x Rosette Kloot; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Willem van West and Rosette van West-Kloot; the Wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl and the death certificates nrs. 1729 for Willem van West, made out in Rotterdam on 3 November 1951 and nr. 619 of 2 February 1951 for Rosette van West-Kloot.