Leonora Vos was born on 8 December 1905 in Amsterdam. Together with her parents Hijman Vos and Lea van West, siblings Philip, Barend, Sara and Esther, Leonora left Amsterdam in April 1909 for Belgium, where they found housing in the Van den Peerenboomstraat 26 in Borgerhout (Antwerp).
On 1 July 1910 Leonora and the family moved to Lange Kievitstraat 110 in Antwerp and up from August 1913 everybody lived at Van Vaerenbergstraat 57 in Berchem. After they have lived in Amsterdam again at Amstel 113 since February 1915, the Hijman Vos family arrived in July 1919 again in Antwerp and went living at Provinciestraat 273.
On 6 March 1923, the then 17-year old Leonora Vos married in Antwerp the 22-year old Jozeph Cohen, a son of Philip Cohen from Dordrecht and Mina Eismann from Venlo and on 30 November 1923 their first child was born there, a daughter Mina.
Jozeph Cohen was born on 14 October 1900 in Amsterdam, lived with his parents and three siblings in Antwerp and in Den Haag, where he was employed as an errandboy between 1915 and 1919 but later he became a commercial traveller by profession. In July 1919 Jozeph moved with his parents and sibs to the Carnotstraat 168 in Borgerhout.
In 1932 Jozeph and Leonora lived in Deurne (Antwerp) where on 6 January 1933 their second child was born, a son named Philip and thereafter they went living in June 1934 in municipality of Berchem in the Junonstraat 9.
The marriage of Jozeph and Leonora however did not last. Presumably in the autumn of 1935 or in 1936 the marriage ended in a divorce; on 10 October 1935 Jozeph Cohen left from Berchem for the Van Hovestraat 38 in Deurne (Antwerp) and Leonoara Vos to the Van Haverlei 60 and since then they lived apart from each other at different addresses.
Leonora Vos married again on 18 January 1941 in Berchem the diamond polisher Abraham Roosnek, who was born on 26 April 1906 in Amsterdam as a son of Salomon Roosnek and Rebecca Dreese. However, already over a year later, Abraham Roosnek passed away in Berchem on 25 June 1942.
Leonora Vos and both her children Mina and Philip Cohen were deported on 15 January 1943 with convoy XVIII (18) from Mechelen to Auschwitz. It was a compostition of the 18th and 19th convoy with 1555 deportees in total. Already up from the end of October or early November, the SS with the help of the Flemish police started to compile this transport by means of round-ups on Jewish citizens.
Upon arrival in Auschwitz on 18 January 1943, more than 2/3rd of the deportees were immediately gassed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, among them most likely also Leonora Roosnek-Vos, her children Mina and Philip Cohen as well her sister-in-law Rosa Roosnek and her mother-in-law Rebecca Roosnek-Dreese.
Sources includt the Felix Archive of Antwerp, various dossiers of foreigners for Hijman Vos en Leonora Vos no.135618 from Antwerp, for Jozeph Cohen no.20620, Abraham Roosnek no.25002 and Rosa Roosnek no.25594 from Berchem; wedding certificate 311 from Berchem for Leonora Vos/Abraham Roosnek/dossier 25002; the passing of Abraham Roosnek in Berchem 25 Juni 1942/dossier25002; website Holocaust Survivors and Victims database/website Kazerne Dossin/transportlist convoy 18 and the Memorial of the Deportation of the Belgian Jews, page 29.