Hijman Vos was a son of Mozes Vos and Maria Polak. He was born on 22 April 1890 in Amsterdam and was a diamond worker by profession. On 6 September 1919 he got married in Zaandam to Henriette Serlui, a daughter of Isaac Serlui and Grietje Dingsdag, who was born on 26 July 1889 in Amsterdam. The couple had two children, namely Maurits in 1920 and Catharina in 1921.
After their weddingday in 1919, they moved into living space at Tolstraat 71 1st floor in Amsterdam (with Nordmeijer). Already in September of that year, they moved to the Pieter Aertsstraat 71 and on 12 November 1923 they moved into their final house at Transvaalplein 23 upperhouse in East Amsterdam, where since December 1924 also Hijman’s inlaw, Isaac Serlui and Grietje Dingsdag came living in.
At some point, Isaac Serlui and Grietje Dingsdag were officially registered in the People’s Registry of Amsterdam and since November 1894, they have lived at several addresses in the city, before they came living in at the Transvaalplein. Grietje Dingsdag however passed away on 2 Febuary 1929 and was interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Diemen. Isaac Serlui, who was born on 26 August 1858 in Amsterdam as a son of Mozes Samuel Serlui and Jutte Isaac Pennemacoor, was deported from Westerbork to Sobibor on 13 April 1943 and upon arrival there on 16 April 1943, immediately murdered in the gas chambers there.
According to the data of his registration card of the Jewish Council, Hijman Vos was a diamond polisher and manager of the vocational school for the diamond industry. Beside that, he was secretary/treasurer of Betsalel, the Society of Israëlitic Diamond workers at the Nieuwe Keizersgracht 61. Hijman obtained a “Sperre” from the Jewish Council “because of function” with an I.D. nr. JR-2910 and was provisionally exempted from deportation with it and (probably) also his wife Henriette Serlui and his children.
The file cabinet of the Jewish Council however does not contain a registration card of Henriette Serlui, which makes it impossible to ascertain exactly what happened to her and when. Most likely, she was put on transport to Bergen Belsen on 19 May 1944, together with her husband Hijman Vos. After the war, Dutch authorities have established by means of her certificate of death nr. 573, made out by the municipality of Amsterdam on 6 December 1951, that Henriette Serlui, most recently married to Hijman Vos, had died (somewhere) in Germany on 16 April 1945.
Son Maurits Vos has survived the Holocaust. He started his professional carreer as a lab technician but later in 1942 he became an officer at Betsalel, the Society of Israëlitic Diamond Workers at the Nieuwe Keizersgracht 61. It appeared from data of his registration card from the file cabinet of the Jewish Council that he had been living on 24 June 1946 at Johannes Verhulststraat 40 1st floor in Amsterdam-South.
Daughter Catharina Vos, diamond cutter by profession, was taken to concentration camp Vught in the night of 23 to 24 July 1943. However, there she had been discharged on 25 September 1943. The Jewish Council had provided her earlier with a “Sperre” because of “Wehrmacht and diamond”, but already on 29 September 1943 she was registered again, now in camp Westerbork and accommodated in barrack 65. On 19 October 1943, she was put on transport to Auschwitz and on arrival there on 22 October 1943 immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Hijman Vos was registered in concentration camp Vught on 7 August 1943. Already during the mandatory registration of all Jews in the Netherlands at the Jewish Council, it was taken down that he was a diabetes patient. According to his registration card of camp Vught, he underwent a “medical analysis” on 6 January 1944, he had been “ill”, and was transferred from Vught to Westerbork with the last Jew transport of 4 May 1944. Then Hijman Vos was put on transport on 19 May 1944 to Bergen Belsen and from there sent to Oranienburg on 4 December 1944, where in the end he has lost his life on 31 January 1945.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Hijman Vos, archive cards of Hijman Vos, Henriette Serlui and Isaac Serlui; website ITS Arolson/camp cards Vught from Hijman Vos and Catharina Vos; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Hijman Vos, Maurits Vos and Catharina Vos; certificate of death from Amsterdam for Henriette Vos-Serlui, nr. 573 dated 6 December 1951 from the A-register 89-folio 97verso; website hetstenenarchief.nl/grave Grietje Dingsdag and the website jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl.