Lion Heijmans was a son of Heiman Hertz Heijmans and Jula Cossmann. He married Martha Linz on 27 April 1918. Four children were born to the couple, two of whom survived the war. In 1917, Lion Heijmans took over C. Cossmann’s manufacturing business at Sternstrasse 9 in Borken, in Germany. In 1928 he rented a two-storey house from the city of Borken, at Mühlenstrasse 13, which became both the family’s home and a shop.
In October 1938 Lion Heijmans travelled by train from Borken to visit relatives in Groenlo in the Netherlands. At the border, the two savings-books he had with him, in the names of his children, were taken from him. The customs officials allowed him to continue his journey, but the next day Borken’s local newspaper reported that ‘the Jew Heijmans had fled with 2,000 guilders’. His wife telephoned him and asked him to stay in the Netherlands until the matter had died down.
After Kristallnacht, a few weeks later, when Nazis forced their way into the house and wrought havoc there, his wife also went to the Netherlands. They rented a room at De Watermolen hotel and contacted a lawyer in Borken to liquidate their business there as favourably as possibly.
Once he had settled in the Netherlands, Lion Heijmans went into textiles. He rented a house from his brother Harrie on Stationslaan in Groenlo. On 8 October 1941 Lion and his brother Harrie were picked up by the Germans in a raid. Lion Heijmans was taken to Mauthausen and about two weeks later the family heard that he had died there of heart failure.
From: Albert Heijmans, Jood zonder ster (Westervoort, 2004)
For a biographical note see: H.E. Dominicus, Mauthausen. Een gedenkboek (2e herziene en uitgebreide druk; Amsterdam 1999) 65-66.
In addition, a Jokos file (number 32611) on this family is at the Amsterdam Municipal Archive. Access is subject to authorization from the Stichting Joods Maatschappelijk Werk.