Simon Reiss, son of Barend Reiss and Hanna Marie Root, was born 16 September 1913 in Amsterdam. He lived at home at Tugelaweg 97 parterre, together with his mother and sibs Lena, Esther, Kitty, Josephine and Abraham Mozes. Simon was employed as warehouse clerk but later he worked as a domestic servant.
On 16 July 1942 he married Marianna Goudsmit in Amsterdam, who was born 12 August 1919 as daughter of Elias Goudsmit and Rebecca da Costa da Fonseca. Marianna was a seamstress and worked since 1938 at the textile factory of Hollandia Kattenburg. On 11 November 1942 the factory was raided by the Sicherheits Dienst (SD) and all Jewish textile workers were carried off to Westerbork. Some of them however ended up first in the Scheveningen prison and from there on 26 November in Westerbork.
Simon Reiss arrived in Westerbork on 14 November 1942 and has been deported on 30 November to Auschwitz. Also his wife Marianna Goudsmit was deported that day with the same transport, which also contained the 367 Jewish textile workers from Hollandia Kattenburg.
The train stopped at Kozel, about 80 km west from Auschwitz, where 170 men had to leave the train, among them also Simon Reiss, to be deployed as forced labourers in the surrounding labor camps. Those, who remained in the train were transported onwards to Auschwitz, to be killed there on arrival. Also Marianna Reiss-Goudsmit arrived in Auschwitz on 3 December 1942, where she has been immediately killed in the gas chambers there.
Simon Reiss ended up from Kozel in the steel factory at Malapane, Upper Silezia (nowadays named Ozimek, Opole in Poland), where he was deployed as forced labourer. On 31 July 1943 he lost his life there, due to hardship and exhaustion. Probably he too has been buried in the neighbouring village Szczedrzyk at the Roman Catholic cemetery in a mass grave for forced labourers.
Sources includes City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Barend Reiss, archive cards of Hanna Marie Reiss-Root, Simon Reiss and Marianna Goudsmit; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Simon Reiss and Marianna Goudsmit; Wikipedia listing jodentransporten vanuit Nederland and various info about “grave in Poland” at Joods Monument.