Lea Vos was a daughter of Jesaia Vos and Saartje Leuw and was born in Antwerp on 22 October 1912. She married there on 3 January 1933 the diamond polisher Jacob Pampel, a son of Abraham Pampel and Vrouwtje Pels. The Pampel-Vos couple had one daughter, Frieda, who was born in Deurne (Antwerp) on 20 August 1934. The entire family was murdered during the Shoah.
Lea Vos lived in Antwerp with her parents and older brother Salomon, where she was born at Provinciestraat 251. The family then moved to Borgerhout and Deurne, where her sister Neeltje (usually called Nelly), was born on 5 April 1914.
On 3 January 1933 Lea Vos married in Antwerp the 26-year old Jacob Pampel, a son of Abraham Pampel and Vrouwtje Pels, who was born in Amsterdam on 6 January 1906. He lived already in Berchem with his parents since April 1924 and up from April 1927, he lived at Olijftakstraat 7 in Antwerp. Jacob and Lea left after their wedding ceremony to their own address at Van Lissumstraat 19 in Deurne. There on 20 August 1934 their daughter Frieda was born.
During the big raid, which has been held in the end of August 1942 in Antwerp, the Pampel-Vos family was arrested and carried off to Mechelen. Jacob Pampel was sent to Northern France to be deployed there as forced labourer for the “Organization Todt”. His wife Lea and his daughter Frieda however were both deported to Auschwitz with the 8th Convoy which departed from Mechelen on 8 September 1942. The transport arrived in Auschwitz on 10 September 1942 and it is most likely that Lea Pampel-Vos, together with her daughter Frieda Pampel upon arrival there have been gassed immediately in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau,
At the other hand, Jacob Pampel was deployed at the building of the “Atlantik Wall” in Northern France but was added on 21 October 1942 to the 15th Convoy, together with another 237 “compulsory labourers” which would leave from Mechelen for Auschwitz, together with the 14th Convoy on 24 October 1942. Those forced labourers came from the Todt Organization camps in Charleville and La Rochelle
The 15th Convoy left for Auschwitz on the same date as the 14th, on 24 October with a total of 1471 deportees and arrived in Auschwitz on 26 October 1942. What then happened to Jacob Pampel at the time is not known; more than half of the deportees were immediately gassed in the gas chambers, the others have been registered in the camp, of whom only 41 people made it to the liberation. For Jacob Pampel, the date of death of 26 October 1942 has been maintained on the Joods Monument, which is the same date of arrival in Auschwitz.
Sources include the Felix Archive of Antwerp/ Dossier of Foreigners of the City of Antwerp no. 139180 for Jesaia Vos and Lea Vos, Dossier no. 11783 from Berchem for Jacob Pampel and Abraham Pampel, Dossier no. 193411 of the City of Antwerp for Jacob Pampel and Lea Vos; the Antwerp wedding certificate Pampel/Vos no. 8 dated 3 January 1933 and the Memorial of the Deportation of the Belgian Jews, pages 24 and 35.