Isaäc Leger was a son of Salomon Leger and Dina Engers and he was born on 9 Februray 1882 in Amsterdam. On 13 March 1907 he married Betsij Cartoef in Amsterdam (sometimes spelled as Betsy), a daughter of Hijman Cartoef and Branca Dooseman. The couple had one son, Salomon, who was born in Amsterdam on 8 February 1911.
As far as has been researched in the archives, Isaäc Leger worked as a diamond polisher. After being married to Betsij Cartoef, they lived in Amsterdam among others at Iepenweg, Gelderschekade, Pretoriusstraat, Transvaalstraat 51 and per 14 February 1927 the family lived at Cilliersstraat 3 1st floor. Their last move was in June 1939 to Transvaalstraat 137 in Amsterdam-East.
Their son Salomon left for Antwerp in 1926 where he worked as diamond polisher. Only 3 September 1930 he returned from Deurne in Belgium to Cilliersstraat 3 and started working then as a milkman. Salomon was unmarried.
On 29 September 1942, Isaäc and his wife Betsij were carried off to Westerbork, from where they were deported to Auschwitz already on 2 October. This transport with 1014 deportees was the first, which left via the extended railroad from the camp. On arrival in Auschwitz on 5 October 1942, Isaäc Leger and Betsij Cartoef were immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Only a few days later was Salomon Leger also deported. On 5 October 1942 a transport left from Westerbork for Auschwitz with in total 2012 deportees, including the first part of the 10.000 forced labourers from the liquidated Jewish labour camps. Not known is however, whether Salomon Leger has been put to work already earlier in 1942 in one of the Jewish labour camps in the Northern Netherlands.
Known however is, that this transport has made a stop in Kozel, located ±80 km west from Auschwitz. There 550 boys and men between 15 and 50 years of age were forced to leave the train. They were deployed as forced labourers in the surrounding labour camps in Upper Silisia but it is also unknown where Salomon eventually ended up.
After the war, it has become clear that the circumstances in those German labour camps in Poland were tough and inhumane. Prisoners died there due to diseases, hardship cruelty and/or mistreatment. Therefore the Ministry of Justice after the war commissioned the Municipality of Amsterdam to draw up a death certificate for Salomon Leger, in which is established that he has died somewhere in Mid Europe on 31 August 1943.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Isaäc Leger, archive cards of Isaäc Leger, Betsij Cartoef and Salomon Leger, death certificate 165 from the A-register 91-folio 29 dated 27 December 1951 made out in Amsterdam, the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Isaäc Leger, Betsij Leger-Cartoef and Salomon Leger and the Wikipedia website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl