Max David Mello was a son of David Mello and Roosje Cohen. He was born in Beverwijk on 20 October 1915 and married the non-Jewish Antje Antonia Kerkhoff in Wijk aan Zee on 7 May 1935. On 10 October, the couple divorced in Beverwijk. As far as known there were no children born from this wedlock. His parents were already deceased before the war: his father died in 1932 and his mother in 1933.
Max David Mello was arrested on 5 May 1943 and carried off to Westerbork, where he stayed in barrack 55. On his registration card his religion was registered as N.I. (Netherland’s Israelitic) but that was crossed out by pen and altered in R.K. (Roman Catholic). Not known is whether Max David Mello switched actually to the R.C. religion.
Max David Mello lived in Velzen, moved in 1937 to Beverwijk and arrived on 19 February 1940 to Amsterdam, where het hen lived with his wife at Scheldestraat 123 1st fFloor. After his divorce he lived at several other addresses in the city but in the end on 28 August 1941 his address was Scheldestraat 123 1st floor again.
On 11 May 1943 Max has been deported to Sobibor. On arrival there he was obiviously one of the great exceptions there: he was selected for work – peat cutting in the camp Dorohucza. This camp existed from 13 March till 3 November 1943, but in his certificate of death, made out on 14 October 1948 by the City of Amsterdam by verdict of the District Court of Amsterdam of 30 August 1948, his date of death was established as on 30 November 1943 in Dorohucza.
Sources include website Open Archieven, wedding and divorce of Mello/Kerkhoff; the City Archive of Amsterdam, archive card of Max David Mello; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration card of Max David Mello and his certificate of death of 14 October 1938, by verdict of the District Court of Amsterdam of 30 August 1948, year 1948, register 8, folio 81, deed number 479.