David Weyl diaries

David Weyl (1873-1948) was born on 11 October 1873 in Erkelenz, Germany to Anselm (1831-1897) and Flora (née Leffmann, 1844-1919) Weyl. He had 15 siblings: Albert (1864-1937), Friederika (1866-1935), Henrietta (b. 1867), Helena (1869-1942), Johanna (1871-1871), Moritz (1872-1936), Bernhard (1875-1930), Louis (1876-1934), Julia (1878-1878), Emanuel (1879-1879), Lina (1880-1907), Jakob (1882-1942?), Louise (1883-1944), Julius (1884-1884), and Rosa (1887-1950). David’s father Anselm owned textile stores in Erkelenz and Kleve. After Anselm died, David and his brother Louis took over the business. Their Kleve store was sold to Leonhard Tietz AG in 1928.

David married Sofie Jonas (1886-1936) in 1906 and had two children, Hans (1907-1997) and Trude (later Trude Heiman, 1911-1994). Hans immigrated to Arnhem, the Netherlands in 1933. He was deported to Westerbork in 1942 along with his wife Margot and their daughter Eva. All three survived the Holocaust. Trude immigrated to the United States in 1938 with her husband Walter Heiman while she was pregnant with their son John. They settled in in St Louis, Mo.

After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, David fled to the Netherlands. He was deported to the Westerbork concentration camp and then to Theresienstadt in 1944. After liberation, he immigrated to the United States in 1946 to live with his daughter Trude in St. Louis. David died in 1948 from tuberculosis which he contacted in Westerbork.