Maup Caransa

Maurits "Maup" Caransa (5 January 1916 – 6 August 2009) was a Dutch businessman who became one of the most important real-estate developers in post-World War II Amsterdam. Caransa was the first well-known Dutch person to be kidnapped for ransom. Caransa owned and built many notable buildings in Amsterdam including the Maupoleum (now demolished) and the Caransa Hotel (still standing on the Rembrandtplein). He influenced the Amsterdam football club AFC Ajax, through his friendship with its chairman, and by supporting the team and players financially.

Biography Caransa was born on 5 January 1916 into a family of Sephardi Jews in Amsterdam. He grew up poor, and had his first paying job at age 5. At age 16, according to a well-known story, he bought a wrecked car for one and a half guilders, sold the parts for profit, then bought more cars. Before the February strike in response to Nazi pogroms, almost all of Caransa's family, including his brother Joel who lived next door to him, had already been arrested. His sister Femma managed to hide, while Maup himself reported at Westerbork transit camp after his parents were taken there. He spent a week with them but was let go, while his parents were deported to Germany. His parents and his three brothers died in Nazi concentration camps. Because he married a Catholic woman in 1941 and did not appear stereotypically Jewish to the Nazis and their allies (he had blond, almost red hair and light-blue eyes He survived the war living in the Jodenbuurt, the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam; he and his sister were the family's only survivors. and when the dump trade fell flat he continued as a real-estate developer, and as the ugliest building in the city or even the country. It was officially named the Burgemeester Tellegenhuis but came to be called after Caransa, the name being a combination of "Maup" and "mausoleum". On occasion, the club, which has a number of nicknames including "Sons of the Gods", was referred to as "Caransajax".

Kidnapping

In 1977, he was kidnapped on leaving the Continental Club after his customary weekly game of bridge and held for five days; he was released after a reported payment of ten million guilders in ransom. The kidnappers were never found. During his captivity, though, Caransa continued to negotiate: his kidnappers wanted 40 million, and he offered 300,000.

Later life and death In November 1977 he opened a bridge tournament, one of the first public events after his release, and joked that two minutes of applause for him at the occasion was better than two minutes of silence. His love of bridge only became well publicized after the kidnapping; from 1971 to 1988. He sponsored bridge tournaments that brought the world's best players to Amsterdam, and supported a semi-professional team for three years.

Caransa's real estate company, the Caransa Group, is run by two of his grandchildren; the year before his death he ranked 186 on the list of the 500 richest Dutch people, with an estimated 161 million euro. He died in Vinkeveen on 6 August 2009, and was buried in the country's oldest Jewish cemetery, Beth Haim in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel.