Verhaal

Mozes Meijer and Transport XII

Husband of Jerris van Os

Door: Ella Levie

via City of Antwerp

(The story of his life will be edited and expanded in the future with experiences that are unrelated to the war, posting this to connect family relations for now). 

Mozes married Jerris van Os in Borgerhout, Antwerp, on 29 November 1929. They traveled between the Netherlands and their home in Antwerp frequently, both of them having been born in the former. 

After nearly 13 years of marriage, Jerris passed under unknown circumstances in Antwerp under the Nazi occupation, on 15 Feb 1942. 

Things got worse for Mozes afterwards. 

Mozes is registered as a passenger on Mechelen Transport XII, the transport following Transport XI, the one that Mozes brother-in-law, Jacob, was registered on. 

After the rationing center arrests that had been carried out on the 22nd of September 1942, word spread around Antwerp rapidly. Jews refused to go to pick up their rations. Many turned to trusted non-Jews and asked to stay with them for their own safety. 

However, there’s still a war. Which means that Belgium was still experiencing a food shortage. People needed to eat, and an individual’s rations weren’t enough to feed their new guests, either. 

So, these well-meaning gentiles took their Jewish guests ration paperwork and headed down to the ration centers to claim their rations for them. A proxy claiming someone’s rations, from what I am aware, was allowed — or at least there was no law prohibiting it. I imagine its easy enough to say something along the lines of “oh, I’m here for my neighbor, he’s at work and I am just doing him a favor” and it was allowed. 

However, starting on September 23rd, Nazi leaders placed the Flemish SS at the distribution centers in plain clothes. Anyone who had Jewish papers, their own or as a proxy, was arrested. The non-Jews were, per my source, pushed to give information — likely by threat, beatings, or threats of deportation themselves. Most who were caught on these raids were put on the same transport as Jacob, however, the list for the 12th transport was compiled between September 26th and October 6th; we can presume since Mozes appears on the October 1st registration that he was one of the 142 who were arrested later (around the 26th). The person hiding him may have taken longer to give up the information. He may have fled elsewhere when they didn’t come back but was eventually caught. The documentation regarding Transport XII is the messiest (along with Transport XIII) of all the Mechelen transports. 

On October 10th, the day the train departed from Mechelen, all who were registered were made to assemble in the courtyard at 4:00. They were called by the intake number they had been given, and a plate with their deportation number (XII for Mozes) was put around their neck. They were ushered into moving trucks and driven to the train station. 

Two deportees managed to escape from the 12th transport, and approximately 200 men between 15-50 were let off as Cosel (now Kędzierzyn-Koźle). Mozes was among neither groups. 

The train arrived at Auschwitz on 12 October 1942. He did not enter the camps that day, based off of surviving records (only 28 men were chosen to be admitted, according to Yad Vashem). At 77 years old, he was presumably murdered in the gas chambers that same day.