Pieter and Monique visited Camp Westerbork in the north of the Netherlands on October 10, 2018; it’s now a memorial museum. Guido Abuys, the head curator of the camp archives, offered to help them in their search for information about the Weiszes. Abuys went into the archives and was gone for some time. When he returned, he looked puzzled. He was carrying the Weiszes’ camp ID cards, which showed something quite rare. The barrack number on the cards looked as if it had been tampered with: the “67” （the penal barrack） had been changed to “87” （the hospital barrack）。 More significantly, somehow （it is not clear how）， between June 11 and June 29, Richard and Ruth Weisz had managed to have the S removed from their camp cards. That meant that they had lost their “penal” status and would thereafter be designated as “normal” prisoners, which had brought about a dramatic change in their circumstances.13
Adding to the puzzle, Richard Weisz sent two letters to the greengrocer’s wife, Mrs. Van Hoeve, requesting that she send clean sheets and clothes. The first letter is stamped “Barrack 67,” the second “Barrack 85.” Did that mean they were relocated to Barrack 85?14
To make that move, the Weiszes would have to have done something extraordinary. Or perhaps someone with influence had interceded on their behalf. Barrack 85, known as the Barneveld Barrack, was the most elite barrack in Westerbork. It was assigned to a privileged group of high-ranking, mostly upper-and middle-class, Dutch Jews considered invaluable to the state, whose status was such that they could not be deported to the east. They were initially housed in a castle near the town of Barneveld in the eastern Netherlands, but on September 29, 1943, they were all deported to Camp Westerbork. Even there they retained some of their privileges.15
Of course, it’s possible that the Weiszes were never assigned to Barrack 85 and someone else mailed the second letter on Richard Weisz’s behalf. Somehow, though, the Weiszes managed to change their penal status. The Cold Case Team knew that “penal” prisoners could change their status for a significant fee （one survivor of Westerbork had paid a fee of 80,000 guilders, the equivalent of $545,000 today）。 The Weiszes, however, did not seem to have that kind of money, which suggests that they might have paid with a different currency: information.
In handwriting on the Weiszes’ identity cards, the date of their deportation is noted along with the added information “Normal case.” Despite having “normal” and not “penal” status, on September 3, 1944, the Weiszes were deported to Auschwitz on the same transport as Anne Frank and her family. Both died in the Eastern European camps. It is not known if they were together or separated and exactly when they perished.16
LEOPOLD DE JONG
Leopold de Jong’s presence in Westerbork is a long story with a curious history. It starts with the man who arrested Van Hoeve and the Weiszes: Pieter Schaap.
Pieter Schaap was the Dutch agent of the SD who led the raid on Van Hoeve’s grocery shop on Leliegracht, around the corner from the secret Annex. He was also the handler of the V-Frau Ans van Dijk and the man behind the betrayal and arrest of Erich Geiringer, the first husband of Fritzi Geiringer, Otto Frank’s second wife. According to his boss, Abraham Kaper, desk sergeant at the Bureau of Jewish Affairs, Schaap was one of the men who brought in the most Jews. “And I should know,” he added, “since I was the one paying them.”17
Schaap was best known for his modus operandi: pressuring Jewish people to act as V-Men and V-Women. After a raid, he would focus on a Jewish prisoner and threaten to send him or her and family to the camps or worse. Then he offered an out if he or she would work for him as an informant. Among his most infamous informants was Leopold de Jong. In the case of De Jong, Schaap had a double advantage: he exploited not only De Jong as a V-Man but also De Jong’s wife, Frieda Pleij.18
In the early days of the occupation, De Jong （who was Jewish） and Pleij （who was not） had people in hiding in their house in Heemstede. They were both known to have lovers. De Jong had relationships with some of the Jewish girls and young women who were in hiding at their home （some of whose families he later betrayed）， and Pleij was involved with a man named Herman Mol, who guarded her house when she was in prison after the war. That she also had a relationship with Pieter Schaap was common knowledge at the SD.19 Pleij said she had been with him only out of fear; he said that she had been his Friedl and he had wanted to marry her, even though he was already married.20
Pleij later claimed that she had delivered food coupons for the resistance. Her CABR file confirms that she received food stamps through a middleman who had connections with the resistance. Evidently, she then sold the food stamps on the black market.