Biography

The fate of Nathan de Haaff.

Nathan de Haaff was the youngest of the three sons of Lehman de Haaff (usually called Leon), and Mietje Wessel. He was born 13 November 1911 in Antwerp, where also his two older sibs were born: Salomon on 18 May 1907 and Bernard on 1 December 1909. Both his brothers have survived the Holocaust but he self as well his parents were killed in the Shoah.

Nathan’s father Lehman de Haaff lived already since 1885 in Antwerp, indeed married Mietje Wessel in 1906 in Amsterdam, but returned then again to Antwerp, where their children were born. They lived there up from 1919 at Kloosterstraat 171. After having also lived at Wilrijk, their last known address became Bolwerkstraat 9 in Antwerp, where they moved to per 14 January 1924.

Nathan was a diamond polisher by profession and unmarried and lived at home with his parents in Antwerp. He had his Identity Card, which was valid till 16 November 1941 but he did not extended it. Therefore, on 12 May 1942 by an so called information bulletin “Depart of a Stranger” he was unsubscribed of his latest address Bolwerk 9 in Antwerp; however a new address was unknown. Nathan de Haaff eventually on 17 June 1952 was officially unsubscribed from the Peoples Registery of Antwerp with the reason “died in Auschwitz in 1943”.

From details of the Memorial de la Shoah can be deduced that Nathan de Haaff most likely left Antwerp already at the end of 1941 or even sooner for Southern France to escape deportation. When he was arrested in the end and ended up in Drancy, his last domicile was St. Sauveu de Montagut in the Ardèche in Southern France. From Drancy, he was deported to concentration camp Maidanek near Lublin in Poland on 4 March 1943 with Convoy 50, where he (according to data on the website of the Oorlogsgravenstichting) would have died  in Lublin on 7 March 1943.

The Dossier of Foreigners of the City of Antwerp, nr. 57864 shows on image 578 the exerpt of the Register of Death, in which the Court of the Eerste Aanleg in Antwerp on 20 April 1950 made a judicial finding, that Nathan de Haaff has died in 1943 in Auschwitz. (Death certificate 1952 B.231).

Sources among others: Memorial of the Deportation of the Belgian Jews (convoy 11); the Dossier of Foreigners of the City of Antwerp nr. 57864, images 566-590 and the Memorial de la Shoah, deportation of Nathan de Haaff.