The parents of Jacques and Fred Goldwasser managed to reach Switzerland, but they were forced to leave their children behind. In 1943, the brothers were separated and placed with foster parents. Jacqui was with the childless couple Messow, and Freddi was with the then-childless couple Jonas. Richard Messow and Erich Jonas owned a Sperre as buyers, deployed by the German Michael Sommer. Kapitän Sommer secretly bought all kinds of goods on the black market on behalf of the German government, mainly metal, and had them sent to Germany by the transport company Kühne & Nagel. Sommer also supplied Westerbork directly or via companies of refugee German Jews.
Richard Messow was a leather merchant, and Erich Jonas was a metal merchant and metal smelter. Both were married in Amsterdam in 1942. Richard Messow married Martha Ernst, a widow who lived with the Goldwasser family before her marriage, probably employed as their housekeeper in February. Erich Jonas married Martha Simons, daughter of the former rabbi of Deutz near Cologne, in September.
In the spring of 1943, orders came from Berlin to put an end to the entire operation (code name Blau Aktion). This also meant it ended the protection of the Goldwasser brothers.
Once they arrived in Westerbork, Richard and Martha Messow were taking care of both children. They were deported with the Goldwasser brothers to Theresienstadt and then to Birkenau.
Richard was taken to the extermination camp separately from Martha and the brothers. The date of his death is 4 October 1944. Martha and the boys were murdered on 8 October 1944 applies. Bizarrely, Auschwitz was the birthplace of Cheskel Goldwasser, the brothers’ father.
Meanwhile, Cheskel and Liselotte Goldwasser had a third son, Edward, in Montreux in April 1944. With Eddy, they returned to Amsterdam after the war. In 1947, they had their fourth son, Josef Marcel, who died as a toddler. In April 1953, they emigrated to the United States, where they built a successful new life.
Fred Goldwasser was born in Amsterdam on 11 February 1935. He was murdered at Auschwitz Concentration Camp on 8 October 1944. He was 9 years old. Fred’s brother Jacques was also born in Amsterdam on 6 March 1938. He was murdered in Auschwitz on the same day as his brother. He had reached the age of 6 years.
Source
History of Sorts 
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