Abramow-Menakier family. Collection

Joseph Abramow was born in Minsk, Belarus (then Russia), on 25 November 1905 as the son of Abraham Abramow and Ethele Choulman. In 1924 Joseph requested a visa for Belgium to study at the university in Ghent. He arrived in October of that year and found living quarters at Rue de la Caverne. In 1925 Joseph obtained a permanent visa. In 1928 he moved from Ghent to Antwerp and became a clerk at a trading company although he had obtained a degree in chemical engineering. On 12 December 1931, Joseph Abramow married Dunia alias Dina Menakier, born on 7 March 1908 in Horodziej, Belarus (then Poland), as the daughter of Szymon Menakier and Bejla Schwartz. Dunia had emigrated to Belgium in December 1930 and first lived in Bressoux before moving to Antwerp. By the time of their marriage, Joseph had found employment as a chemical engineer. The couple settled at Lange Herentalsestraat in Antwerp, where on 21 May 1932, Dunia gave birth to their son Maurice. Joseph and Dunia started a pharmacy at Plantin en Moretuslei, where Joseph worked as a chemist and Dunia ran the store. They also supported Hoda Menaker, the widow of Joseph’s brother Salomon Abramow, and her son Samuel who migrated to Belgium in 1932. In 1933, Hoda married Moise Creizberg and moved out of the Abramow residence. By 1935 Joseph and Dunia had split up. While he moved to Brussels where he opened his own shop, Dunia continued the pharmacy in Antwerp together with her brother-in-law Michael Sapiro, husband of Dunia’s sister Jessel alias Lena Menakier. The Sapiro’s had two daughters: Jenny (born on 13 July 1932 in Antwerp) and Adolphine alias Tania (born on 3 September 1933 in Antwerp). As their parents often worked, Jenny, Tania and Maurice spent a lot of time together and with a caretaker. Maurice looked upon his cousins as his sisters. In the night of 13 on 14 August 1942 the apartment of the Sapiro family in Antwerp was invaded by the Nazis. Michael, Lena and their daughters were arrested and transferred to the Dossin barracks in Mechelen. They were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau via Transport III on 15 August 1942. None of the family members survived. Maurice, who was also supposed to spend the night at the Sapiro apartment, had made a fit the previous day not wanting to stay there and had subsequently been brought to the woman who regularly took care of all three children. Maurice thus avoided arrest, but would continue to feel guilty about not persuading his cousins to join him at their caretaker’s house for the rest of his life. Upon his family’s arrest, Maurice was placed in hiding by the Jewish Defence Committee under the false identity of Maurice Allart. Both Maurice Abramow and his mother Dunia Menakier survived the war, as did his father Joseph Abramow. In late 1942 Joseph had gone into hiding in Ghent, where he remained until liberation. He then joined the American Army as an engineer and was deployed to Germany. In 1949 he and Dunia officially divorced. Joseph emigrated to the United States in 1957. Maurice Abramow obtained Belgian nationality when turning sixteen and studied medicine at the Université Libre de Bruxelles [Free University of Brussels]. He became a doctor and a professor at the same university. Maurice married Luce Cremers and had a daughter. Maurice Abramow passed away in 2018.

In 2013 Luce Cremers, wife of Maurice Abramow, kindly permitted the digitisation of selected items from her husband's private collection. She donated the original photo album to Kazerne Dossin.

Luce Cremers, wife of Maurice Abramow, 2013