Elias Vos was a son of Salomon Vos and Betje Elias Jacobs. He was born in Amsterdam on 30 May 1859 and earned his living as a merchant. On 25 August 1880 he married in Amsterdam Saartje Koort, a daughter of Samuel Koort and Mirjman Nunes Vaz. Saartje was born on 24 July 1858.
The Vos-Nunes Vas couple had four children, vis. Samuel, Benzion, Jaantje and Betsy. Samuel, as well Betsy, died at young age in 1893: Samuel at the age of 11 years and Betsy died only 7 months old. On 23 January 1890 Benzion was born and Jaantje followed on 10 March 1891. However, Saartje Koort passed away already at the age of 36 years on 25 December 1894. Not known is where she has been interred.
On 16 December 1896, Elias Vos remarried then Betje van Gelder from Kampen. She was born there on 24 April 1859 as the 7th of the 9 children of Joseph Levij van Gelder and Eva Levie Knoek.
Elias Vos and Saartje Koort lived at various addresses in Amsterdam, but after he remarried Betje van Gelder, they left for Schaerbeek in Brussels in 1936. On 13 September 1939 they returned to Amsterdam and then lived at Nieuwe Hoogstraat 9-11 in Hotel Hiegentlich. On 11 September 1941 Elias and Betje moved to the Joodsche Invalide at Weesperplein 1, where Elias Vos passed away on 5 December 1941.
Betje Vos-van Gelder, on the other hand, awaited a horrible fate: On 1 March 1943 the last 236 inhabitants and staff of the Joodsche Invalide werd deported by the German occupiers. This was accompanied by a lot of violence. Lou de Jong wrote about that: “Kisch saw among others how elderly patients were thrown down te stairs”. (source: Joodserfgoed Amsterdam/Weesperplein 1/Joodsche Invalide).
Betje Vos-van Gelder was one of those last residents, who were deported to Westerbork on 1 March 1943, were she was registered on 2 March and ended up in barrack 68. Betje then was deported to Sobibor on 10 March, where she arrived on 13 March 1943 and then immediately was murdered in the gas chambers there.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Elias Vos and archive cards of Elias Vos and Betje van Gelder; website wiewaswie.nl and open archieven.nl; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration card of Betje Vos-van Gelder and the website Joodserfgoed Amsterdam.nl.