Cato Bloemhof was a daughter of Salomon Abraham Bloemhof and Roosje Ossendrijver. From her father's first marriage she had two sisters, Judith and Reintje and a brother Mozes, who were all murdered with their families during the Shoah. After the death of Roosje Ossendrijver, her father married Anna Vleeskruijer and Cato Bloemhof again had two more sisters, Judic and Johanna, who were also murdered with their families during the Holocaust.
Cato Bloemhof married in Amsterdam on 7 November 1912 the diamond cutter Hartog de Leeuw from Kortenhoef, born on 20 December 1889 as son of Abraham de Leeuw and Eva de Lange. The couple had four children, namely Eva, Roosje, Reintje and Abraham. Only Roosje and her family survived the Holocaust; the other three children and their parents were killed during the Shoah.
When Hartog de Leeuw was not yet married, he lived in Hilversum. He came as a diamond worker apprentice to Amsterdam where he lived with Mrs. Cohen in the Lepelkruisstraat 13. On 9 September 1911 he moved to Miguelstraat 141. (When the Wibautstraat was built in 1936, a few streets disappeared, including Miguelstraat and also the Spoorbaanstraat - source "Het Geheugen van Oost), but the day after his marriage to Cato Bloemhof, they both moved in with W. de Goede, who lived at Ruyschstraat 120. In 1913 they moved to Spoorbaanstraat 32 II (disappeared in 1936), after which eight more relocations followed; on 29 October 1935 they moved into a house at Brinkstraat 38 in Betondorp in Amsterdam-East. In the meantime, the De Leeuw family also lived in the municipalities of Nieuwer Amstel and Diemen. From 1930, Hartog de Leeuw worked as a florist.
Hartog de Leeuw was "exempted because of function" ("gesperrt") by the Jewish Council. From March 1923 he was also working as a gardener and assistant grave digger at the N.I.H.S. the Nederlands Israëlitische Hoofd Synagoge in Amsterdam. His wife Cato Bloemhof "has also an “exempted” due to her husband's position. Both were arrested on 29 June 1943 and taken to Westerbork, where they both ended up - for some reason - in penal barracks 67. The same day they were both deported to Sobibor where they were immediately murdered on arrival on 2 July 1943.
Sources include: Amsterdam City Archives, family card and archive card of Hartog de Leeuw; family card and archive card of Salomon Abraham Bloemhof; acquired parts 1892-1920 / Bloemhof; The Memory of East / Miguelstraat; the archive of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Hartog de Leeuw, Cato de Leeuw-Bloemhof and Abraham de Leeuw and an additition of a visitor of the website.