Emanuel Vos was born on 20 January 1898 as the 7th of the 13 children of Mozes Vos and Maria Polak. He was diamond worker by profession and later specialized as brilliant cutter. On 28 March 1923 he married Bregje Rachel Wagenhuijzen, who was born in Amsterdam on 16 December 1894 as a daughter of Salomon Wagenhuijzen and Mietje van Praag. The Vos-Wagenhuijzen couple had two daughters, namely Marianne in 1925 and Mary in 1929. Both girls have survived the Holocaust.
After they were wed, Emanuel and Bregje lived in with Emanuel’s inlaw Salomon Wagenhuijzen at Blasiusstraat 108. Already in August 1923 Emanuel and his wife left for Antwerp, where they lived at a furnished room in the Loosstraat 68 and where Emanuel regularly earned his living as a diamond worker. In June 1924 they returned in Amsterdam where they found living space at Vechtstraat 54. After the birth of their first daughter Marianne in March 1925, they moved to the Pieter Lastmankade 90 2nd floor in July 1925.
It appeared that in the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, no registration card of Emanuel Vos could be found. From the registration cards of his wife Bregje Rachel Wagenhuijzen and of both the daughters it has been clear that they have been brought to Westerbork on 24 July 1943 and there ended up in barrack 63. Most likely Emanuel Vos had to join them too. He might have been in possession already of the so-called “Ausnahme Bescheinigung” with nr. 2454 and perhaps already exempted from deportation earlier as a result of some job he had in or for the Jewish Council, which is however not verifiable due to the missing of his registration card of the Jewish Council.
Presumably the four members of the Vos family belonged to the group of 450 persons, who however were exempted from deportation because of their “Sperre” and safeguarded for all kinds of police actions, but as in the summer of 1943 a large number of the Dutch Jews were already deported, a shortage of people working at the Jewish Council threatened too.
After Sunday, 20 June 1943, when the secretly prepared large-scale raid provided more than 5500 Jews for deportation, Aus der Fünten however was still of the opinion that there should still excist a small Jewish Council. As a result of this and due to the "Ausnahme Bescheinigung", the Vos family was discharged from Westerbork on 18 September 1943 and they could return to Amsterdam, where they came to live at Krugerstraat 18 2nd floor in Amsterdam-East.
At some point, the Vos-family then went into hiding. The daughters Marianne and Mary Vos eventually have survived the Holocaust. Marianne emerged in July 1945 at Vechtstraat 155 and Mary at the same date at Gaaspstraar 17 in Amsterdam. Notes on their registration cards from the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, made after the war, showed that Marianne in 1963 lived in Antwerp and Mary in 1963 in Kiryat Ono in Israël.
Bregje Rachel Wagenhuijzen and presumably also her husband Emanuel Vos, were brought in Westerbork again on 6 June 1944 and put on transport to Theresienstadt on 31 July 1944. Transport cards from Theresienstadt show that Emanuel Vos has been deported “to the East” on 28 September 1944 and his wife Bregje Rachel Wagenhuijzen too on 6 October 1944. Both deportations “to the East” had the final destination as Auschwitz, where Bregje Rachel Wagenhuijzen upon arrival there has lost her life on 8 October 1944.
Emanuel Vos, who was deported on 28 September 1944 from Theresienstadt “to the East”, arrived in Auschwitz on 30 September 1944 where he was selected as “arbeitsfähig” (suitable to work). Then he has been put to work in one of the many labor sub-camps of the Auschwitz complex and eventually somewhere in Mid-Europe, perhaps during a so-called "death march or evacuation transport", he has lost his life on 30 April 1945.
Sources include the City Archive of Amsterdam, family registration card of Emanuel Vos, archive cards of Emanuel Vos and Bregje Rachel Wagenhuijzen; Dossier of Foreigners of Antwerp nr.167622; membership cards of the ANDB for Emanuel Vos; the file cabinet of the Jewish Council, registration cards of Bregje Rachel Wagenhuijzen, Marianne and Mary Vos; website ITS Arolson, transport cards Theresienstadt-Auschwitz for Emanuel Vos and Bregje Rachel Wagenhuijzen; publication “Vermoedelijk op transport”(probably on transport), master scription Archive sciences Leiden University 2010/2011 by Raymund Schütz, par. 3.3.8. and the book “De oorlog die Hitler won”(the war Hitler won), edited 1947 by the ABC Mij N.V. pages 250 and further; publication Auschwitz part VI of March 1952 by the Dutch Red Cross, evacuation transports from Auschwitz and surroundings, pages 8 and 9 sub AI.