Dvora Levin

Deborah (Devora) Margolis-Kalwaryiski was the daughter of Haim Margolis-Kalwaryiski and Esther Glickstein. She was born in 1901. She married David Alex Levin, known as "Alex". He was born in The Netherlands and was an electrical engineer, who spent a few years in the Dutch West Indies (Indonesia) and then made aliyah (emigrated) to Israel in 1933. Devora and Alex had a son, Dan, born in 1934.

They left Israel and moved to Amsterdam in 1939 when Alex's mother died. He was offered a good job in Amsterdam and, although the war was already raging in Europe and Poland was occupied by the Nazis, and there was fighting in France, he felt that Holland would be safe because it was neutral. So he moved to Amsterdam with his wife and nine year old son. Within six months of their arrival in Holland, the country was overrun by the German army. David lost his job and became a teacher in a Jewish school. When the deportations to Poland started in 1942, they went underground, joining the Dutch resistance, but were betrayed and caught and sent to Auschwitz. They had escaped to Belgium, but were arrested and brought to Michelen in Belgium and deported in January 1943 to Auschwitz where they perished.

A family member notes: "Because Devora and Dan were born in Palestine, she might have been saved by separating from her husband, regaining her and Dan's Palestinian citizenship and being exchanged for German women who lived in Palestine, and were detained when the war broke out. There were several cases like that. But she refused to leave her husband!"

The family tried to convince Devora to wait and see what developed in Europe or at least to leave her child in Palestine, but she was insisted upon the family moving to Amsterdam together.