Lion Vos was a son of Wolf Vos and Henriette van Leeuwen. He was born in Amsterdam on 16 December 1908 but left on 18 January 1909 with his mother and elder brother Hijman to Antwerp, where his father lived and worked as a diamond worker.
In the beginning, the family lived at Provinciestraat 188 in Antwerp but moved to Deurne and Borgerhout, where they had residence per 1 April 1914 at Rolwagenstraat 84. Meantime on 11 February 1913 another daughter has been born there, Lea, who later got mixed married and survived the war.
Lion Vos came from Belgium to Amsterdam again and moved on 5 October 1932 from Hertzogstraat 6 ground floor, where his mother resided, to the Ben Viljoenstraat 15, where his aunt Esther Vos-Porcelijn lived with her daughter Lea and son-in-law Emanuel Zomerplaag. On 30 November 1933 Lion left then for Tugelaweg 139 3rd floor, in June 1934 to Tugelaweg 129 and in August 1935 again to Hertzogstraat 6 ground floor.
On 26 Februray Lion married in Amsterdam his cousin Rachel Vos, the 27-year old daughter of his father’s brother Leendert Vos and Esther Porcelijn, after which they moved into a house in the Kromme Mijdrechtstraat 85 2nd floor. The couple had one child: Leo Wilfred, who was born there on 11 June 1937. On 6 November 1940 the family moved to Tugelaweg 7 ground floor, which became also their last known address in Amsterdam.
Jewish Council documents show, that Rachel Vos-Vos was already in Westerbork on 7 August 1942 and that she has been put on transport to Auschwitz on that same day. Possibly she has reported there voluntarily for the so-called “provision of additional work in Germany”. Her registration card from the file cabinet of the Jewish Council shows the note “zonder nummer”(without number), which seems to imply that she hasn’t been called up for the “Arbeitseinsatz” through numbered lists.
The transport with Rachel Vos-Vos and 986 others arrived in Auschwitz ±10 August 1942 and Rachel was put to work there as a forced labourer. It is not known under which circumstances and when she has lost her life there, but after the war, the Dutch Ministry of Justice ordered the Municipality of Amsterdam to draw up a certificate of death for Rachel Vos, in which has been established that she has died on 30 September 1942 in Auschwitz.
On the other hand, Lion Vos and his 5-year old son Leo Wilfred were only arrested on 16 March 1943 and carried off to Westerbork, where they ended up together in barrack 70. Throuht the ANDB, the diamond workers union, Lion has tried to get and exemption from deportation by requesting them a statement about his activities for them in 1936, but nothing has been found about that. Lion was a colporteur for a weekly, as stated on his family registration card from the City Archive of Amsterdam, and not active in the diamond industry. Lion Vos and his son Leo were subsequerntly deported to Sobibor on 4 May 1943 where they were immediately murdered in the gas chambers upon arrival there on 7 May 1943.
Sources include the Felix Archief Antwerp/dossier of foreigners no. 128556 for Wolf Vos; the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Lion Vos and Leendert Vos; archive cards for Lion Vos and Rachel Vos-Vos; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Lion Vos, Rachel Vos-Vos and Leo Wilfred Vos; Amsterdam residence cards of Kromme Mijdrechtstraat 85 and Tugelaweg 129; the certificate of death no. 111 from the A-register 45-folio 20 for Rachel Vos, made out in Amsterdam on 4 August 1950 and the Wikipedia listing of Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl