Abraham Vos was a son of Isaac Vos and Mietje Visser en was born on 27 September 1898 in Amsterdam. On 28 November 1929 he married there Jetta van Delft, a daughter of Abraham van Delft and Esther Brommet, who were both born in Veendam but since September 1904 were living in Amsterdam. The Abraham Vos-van Delft couple had no children.
After their wedding day, Abraham Vos and Jetta van Delft lived at Tolstraat 66 in Amsterdam. Abraham started his career as a diamond polisher but in Rotterdam, where Abraham and his wife moved to on 29 April 1932, he became a branch manager at the “Maatschappij de Noorderpost”, which was located at Lamsteeg 1A, most likely a mail company. Abraham and Jetta then lived at Lamsteeg 1B and per 8 April 1935 at Kaasmarkt 13.
The Maatschappij de Noorderpost traded in sanitary- and nursery articles. From later advertisements as in 1940, it appeared that at the time they were located at Kaasmarkt 13 too and that they sold patent medicines, rubber goods and hygienic articles. Abraham Vos was employed at De Noorderpost from 1932 till 1937. The Kaasmarkt 13 however got lost during the bombardment of Rotterdam in May 1940.
On 4 February 1937 Abraham and Jetta returned to Amsterdam and lived in the Toldwarsstraat 4 2nd floor but already the next month they moved to Pieter Aertsstraat 78 1st floor. On 1 April 1940 they moved into a house at Jan Lievensstraat 50 3rd floor in the so-called “Diamond District” of Amsterdam. In the meantime, Abraham Vos went working again as a diamon polisher.
Abraham’s wife, Jetta van Delft, was arrested on 8 September 1943 and carried off to concentration camp Vught, where she had to “work” as a manual labourer. On 16 September 1943 she had been transferred to Westerbork, where she arrived the 17th and ended up in barrack 63. On 21 September she was put on transport to Auschwitz where she must have arrived the 24th of September 1943. She was not sent to the gas chambers and eventually survived the Shoah. On 23 August 1945 she returned from Auschwitz in Amsterdam where she found living space at Beethovenstraat 123 with surving Brommet family and later at Gaaspstraat 39 2nd floor with the widowed Mrs. Vonk.
However, Abraham Vos himself was arrested during the large-scale raids in Amsterdam between 3 and 5 October 1942 and deported to Westerbork. At the same time, the Jewish Labor Camps in the Northern Netherlands were also liquidated by the Germans and the forced laborers also ended up in Westerbork, which caused great chaos there. At that time it was also not registered in which barrack Abraham Vos ended up. On 23 October 1942 he was deported to Auschwitz.
It was possible to obtain a prisoner registration of Abraham Vos from Auschwitz via the surivors and victims register of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and from the information received it appears that he most likely belonged to the selection of 170 men who were taken from the train in Kozel as forced labouers. They were put to work as slaves in the forced labor camps in Upper Silesia. Abraham Vos is said to have been imprisoned in Blechhammer. This camp came under the command of the Auschwitz complex on 1 April 1944, where all men were registered as Auschwitz prisoners. Abraham Vos was given prisoner number 178893 and stayed there until after 1944.
From the death certificate of Abraham Vos, which was drawn up after the war on behalf of the Ministry of Justice and details from a Red Cross publication edited in 1952, entitled “Auschwitz IV”, which describes the large evacuation transports and other transports from the Auschwitz complex in 1944 and 1945, as well as from the information obtained from the Auschwitz archives, the fate of Abraham Vos could be reconstructed as follows:
Abraham Vos was added to an evacuation transport from Blechhammer to Buchenwald on 21 January 1945, which had already left Gleiwitz on 18 January 1945. The prisoners had to walk from Blechhammer to Gross Rosen, and they arrived in Gross Rosen on 2 February 1945, including Abraham Vos. On 7 February this transport was to be sent by train to Buchenwald, but Abraham Vos never reached Buchenwald. On the basis of survivors' testimonies and other information, the Dutch authorities established after the war by means of a death certificate that Abraham Vos died on 7 February 1945 in the vicinity of Gross Rosen.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Abraham Vos, archive cards of Abraham Vos and Jetta van Delft; City Archive of Rotterdam, family registration cards of Abraham Vos; Address book Rotterdam 1934/1935 regarding the Maatschappij De Noorderpost- Lamsteeg 1A and A. Vos branch manager Lamsteeg 1B; website Delpher, advertisements 1940 by De Noorderpost; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Abraham Vos and Jetta Vos-van Delft; website ITS Arolson, camp card Vught of Jetta Vos-van Delft; website US Holocaust Memorial Museum/Holocaust Survivors- and Victims database/prisoner registration of Abraham Vos in Auschwitz; Publication by the Dutch Red Cross of March 1952/Auschwitz VI with the great carry-off- and evacuation transports from the Auschwitz comples, pages 2, 19, 75 and further, regarding Gross Rosen and the certificate of death for Abraham Vos, nr. 232, made out by the City of Amsterdam on 27 December 1951 – A-register 91-folio 40 verso.