Rosa Roosnek, born on 8 August 1909 in Berchem (Antwerp), was a daughter of Salomon Roosnek and Rebecca Dreese. She was unmarried and lived at home with her parents at Bacchuslaan 9 1st floor in Berchem. Her father was a diamond polisher, who was born on 13 April 1877 in Amsterdam but passed away in Berchem on 20 December 1941.
Her mother, Rebecca Dreese, was born in Amsterdam on 9 June 1877 as a daughter of Abraham Dreese and Schoontje Cohen, married on 27 August 1907 Salomon Roosnek, a son of Isaac Simon Roosnek and Roosje Witteboon.
Rosa had a brother Izak, born in 1904 in Amsterdam, but who passed in Deurne (B) on 4 September 1934; a brother Abraham, who was born in 1906 in Amsterdam but passed in Berchem too on 25 June 1942. Rosa had also a sister Jeannette, born in 1916 in Amsterdam, who probably survived the war.
Rosa Roosnek and her mother Rebecca Roosnek-Dreese were deported on 15 January 1943 with convoy XVIII (18) from Mechelen to Auschwitz. Deported too in the same convoy, in combination with the 19th convoy, was Rosa’s sister-in-law Leonora Vos, who married in 1941 her brother Abraham, together with her two children Mina and Philip from her first marriage to Jozeph Cohen from whom she was divorced in 1935 or 1936.
On arrival in Auschwitz on 18 January 1943, 2/3rd of all deportees were immediately killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, among them also Rosa Roosnek and her mother Rebecca Roosnek-Dreese. The Belgian authorities however have established their dates of death as 15 January 1943 in an unknown place, at which the date of death is equal to the deportation date of the 18th and 19th convoy ans should be considered as a juridical date of death.
Sources include the Felix Archive of Antwerp, dossiers of foreigners from the municipality of Berchem, no.’s 25594 for Rosa Roosnek, 3497 for Rebecca Roosnek-Dreese; website wiewaswiel.nl/marriage Roosnek/Dreese; death certificates made out in Berchem, for Rosa Roosnek on 10 January 1957 no. 327 and for Rebecca Roosnek-Dreese no. BR-174 dated 30 August 1956.