Esther Porcelijn was a daughter of Hartog Porcelijn and Rachel Vischjager. She was born on 6 October 1881 in Amsterdam and married there Leendert Vos on 14 September 1905, a son of Hijman Vos and Lea van West. Leendert was born on 14 May 1882 and he was a diamond worker by profession.
Esther and Leendert lived at various addresses in Amsterdam after they were wed, like at Lepelstraat, Lange Houtstraat, Korte Houtstraat, Blasiusstraat, Zandstraat and again Lange Houtstraat. Then, on 6 August 1913 the family of Leendert Vos left for Antwerp, where they have resided in the Bleekerijstraat 1. The family then existed of Leendert, Esther and the children Lea, Rachel and Hijman.
They returned to Amsterdam, where on 30 May 1914 their son Hartog was born but two months later they left again for Antwerp, where they stayed at Rolwagenstraat 9. In 1916 they came back to Amsterdam, where her husband Leendert Vos passed away on 4 March 1919. He was interred in the Jewish Cemetery in Diemen.
After the passing of her husband, the widowed Esther Porcelijn still moved to various addresses in town; she has lived shortly with her brother Manus at Zandstraat 40 and in 1929 again at Lange Houtstraat 41. But on 23 March 1934, she moved to Tugelaweg 120 2nd floor in Amsterdam-East, which would become also her last known address in the Netherlands.
It has turned out that no registration card of Esther Vos-Porcelijn was findable in the file cabinet of the Jewish Council nor that anything could be found via the website ITS Arolson. However, the transport list of 20 April 1943, as copied and printed in the book “Extermination Camp Sobibor” by Jules Schelvis, shows that she was one of the 52 deportees who was added on the last moment to the deportation list as “Nachtrag zum Normaltransport”, Added to a Normal transport, so the total number of deportees came to 1166 persons.
On arrival on 23 April 1943, a few dozen people were selected in Sobibor for work in Sobibor and in the labor camps in the Lublin district. However, no one of this transport survived the Shoah. Those, who were not put to work there, including Esther Vos-Porcelijn, were immediately murdered on arrival that 23rd of April 1943 in the gas chambers of Sobibor.
Sources include the Felix Archive of Antwerp, dossier of foreigners 151004 from Antwerp for Leendert Vos; the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration cards of Leendert Vos, archive card of Esther Porcelijn; residence cards of Amsterdam of Zandstraat 40, Ben Viljoenstraat 15, Lange Houtstraat 41 and Tugelaweg 129; the transportlist of 20 April 1943 Westerbork-Sobibor from the book “Extermination Camp Sobibor”by Jules Schelvis; “Nachtrag zum Normaltransport” see “Vermoedelijk op transport (presumably deported) item 5.5 Sobibor transports by Raymund Schütz (ony Dutch language available); the death certificate 209 from the A-register 11-folio 36 verso dated 3 February 1950 made out in Amsterdam and the Wikipedia website Jodentransporten vanuit Nederland.nl.