Leentje Kaanis, born on 2 June 1886 in Rotterdam, was a daughter of Jacob Kaanis and Betje Aandagt. At the age of 20 she married on 17 October 1906 in Rotterdam the 26-year-old Joseph Mok from Amsterdam, a son of Isaac Aron Mok and Jeannette Natkiel. The couple Mok-Kaanis had five children, namely Isaac Aron in 1907, Betje in 1908 - she passed away in 1925 in Amsterdam and was interred at the Jewish Cemetery in Diemen - Jeannette in 1910, Aaltje in 1913 and Jacob in 1921. The eldest son Isaac Aron married in 1931 and had a daughter and lived with his family since then at another address in Rotterdam.
After their marriage, Leentje and her husband Joseph lived for some time in Rotterdam, where their eldest son Isaac Aron was born in 1907. The family however moved on 25 January 1909 to Amsterdam, where they ended up in the Joden Houttuinen 42. After about 7 months in September 1909, they moved to Batavierstraat 11 and on 6 November 1916 to Uilenburgerstraat 114a. In May 1919 another removal followed to Spitskopstraat 6 in the Transvaal district in Amsterdam East.
Joseph Mok, who among other things worked as shop assistant, died on 5 March 1923 in Amsterdam and was interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Diemen. His widow earned a living as a dressmaker but returned from Amsterdam to Rotterdam in April 1926, where she and her children came linving in the Gouvernestraat 50a. In the years to follow, they moved again some five times, but on 3 October 1940 they were registered at the address Osseweistraat 16B.
Whether Leentje's children have responded to a call for the so-called work expansion in Germany or not, is not known. But they were already present in Westerbork on 31 July 1942 from where they were deported to Auschwitz on 3 August. On arrival there on 5 of 6 August, they were certainly employed as forced laborers in or outside the camp. Jacob Mok lost his life in Auschwitz on 22 September 1942. The "Standesamt" of Auschwitz has sent the information about his death to the Jewish Council in Amsterdam, which showed that he died due to "cardiac weakness and pneumonia".
Jeannette and Aaltje also died in Auschwitz but it is not exactly known on what date. That is why after the war the Dutch Authorities commissioned the city council of Rotterdam to made out death records, in which both their date and place of death were established as on 30 September 1942 in Auschwitz.
Leentje Mok-Kaanis arrived in Westerbork on 12 August 1942 and was transported to Auschwitz two days later, on 14 August. This transport arrived in Auschwitz already on 16 August 1942 and Leentje was immediately killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Sources among others: City archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Joseph Mok; City archive of Rotterdam, family registration card of Leentje Mok-Kaanis; website wiewaswie/birth of Leentje Kaanis – cert. 1886.1148; website hetstenenarchief/grave of Joseph Mok and the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Leentje Mok-Kaanis, Jeannette, Aaltje and Jacob Mok.