Levi van Thijn (also known as Louis), was a son of Benjamin van Thijn and Aaltje Bartels. He was the eldest of three sons of Benjamin and Aaltje and a tailor by trade. On 28 December 1938 he married in Amsterdam Betje Trompetter, (mostly called Bep), a daughter of Isaac Trompetter and Marianne Gosler. The couple had a daughter in 1941, named Alice.
Levi and Betje lived after their wedding for some months at the address Afrikanerplein 16 I in Amsterdam, but in Mei 1939 they stayed shortly at Archimedeslaat 23 ground floor. Per 1 September 1939 they went again to Afrikanerplein 16 I where Levi’s parents lived. Per 22 May 1940 they moved to President Steijnstraat 5 ground floor, which became also their last known address in Amsterdam. There, their daughter Alice was born.
It appeared from a note at his registration card from the Jewish Council, that Levi van Thijn has been called up for work in one of the Jewish labor camps, which were instituted on the basis of a decree of Reichs commissioner Arthur Seys Inquart, taken on 10 October 1941. In the course of 1942, the Nazi destruction machine was operating at full speed; in the Netherlands this led to the work expansion for Jewish unemployed being used by the SS in the prosecution machinery. From December 1941 to August 1942, 42 camps under the National Office for Work Expansion were evacuated; they formed the waiting room of camp Westerbork.
Levi van Thijn appeared already in the first week of September 1942 from one of those labor camps to have been transferred to Westerbork and on September 7 put on transport to Auschwitz. This transport contained 930 persons and stopped at Kozel, which is located about 80 km west from Auschwitz. There, 110 men between 15 and 50 years were forcedly unloaded to be employed then as forced laborers in the surrounding satellite camps of Auschwitz. Those who remained in the train were transported further to Auschwitz and on arrival there 10 September 1944 probably immediately killed.
Levi belonged to the group who was employed as forced laborer; at his age of 25 he arrived in at Seibersdorf in German-occupied Poland, where work needed to be done on the Reichsbahn. Two members of the Kozel-group stated: "During the day we had to work on the railway track and in the evening on the construction of the camp. There was hardly any water. The people (from Westerbork ca 330) died as rats. The population of Seibersdorf, incidentally, was very good for us. The dead were buried by our own boys and when we walked to the cemetery, the whole road was covered with bread and cheese. The railway officers wore revolvers; there were some good ones among them, but most of them were bandits. If the boys did not work well enough, they would be kicked or beaten to death. "
It is not known when Levi van Thijn exactly lost his life in Seibersdorf; he died presumably due to exhaustion, illness or hardships. His official date of death has been established as 31 March 1943.
His wife Betje Trompetter and her little daughter Alice probably have tried to escape prosecution by going into hiding, but they were arrested, presumably by betrayal. Early February 1944 they arrived in Westerbork and had to stay in the penal-barrack 67. Both have been put on transport 8 Februrary 1944 to Auschwitz, Betje as a penal-case. On arrival in Auschwitz on 11 February, it appeared that Alice had already lost her life during transport. Betje van Thijn-Trompetter arrived in the camp; she was not sent to the gas chambers immediately, but eventually she was killed there 31 October 1944.
City archive of Amsterdam, archive card of Levi van Thijn and Betje Trompetter; Wikipedia website: Jewish Labor camps; About Seibersdorf: the book Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Volume 8 by dr. L. de Jong, page 795; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration card of Levi van Thijn and registration cards of Betje van Thijn-Trompetter and Alice van Thijn.