Jacob Osias Klapholz

Jacob Osias Klapholz, a German Jew, emigrated in 1926. He settled in Antwerp where, according to his registration in the register of Jews, he worked in the diamond trade as a cleaver. On 18 July, he was deported to Charleville in the French Ardennes with 242 other forced labourers from Antwerp, where he helped set up the Les Mazures camp for Organisation Todt. On 24 October, about 200 “Mazurois” arrived in Muizen in Mechelen and formed the basis of Transport 15, a similar number of prisoners were brought from the Dossin Barracks to the Muizen Station in Mechelen. Because Transport 15 was part of the same train as Transport 14, the deportees of Transports 14 and 15 mixed together upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Of the men 41% were immediately executed. Jacob Osias Klapholz was 44 years old. As no records remain, the circumstances of his death are unknown to us.