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Malka Sperber’s father had health problems. Therefore the family came to Belgium. Mother and both sons accepted the Arbeitseinsatzbefehl, the employment order issued by the Sipo-SD. They were deported with transport V from the Dossin Barracks in Mechelen to Auschwitz-Birkenau. They did not survive. The fate of father Abraham Broom is unknown to us.
Malka Sperber and Abraham Bezem were both born in Poland: Malka in Cieszanów in 1904 and Abraham three years earlier, in 1901, in Rudawa. In 1925 they got married in Rudawa. The couple had two sons. Israel Joseph Bezem, their first son, was born on April 5, 1926. Their second son, Mordcha Bezem, was born a year later on August 22, 1927.
In May 1933, Malka arrived in Belgium without her husband Abraham Bezem and children with a temporary visa to visit her parents and stayed with them for a while. Although Malka indicated when arriving in Belgium, she was unmarried, she actually still was married to Abraham Bezem, who was supporting her from Poland. Presumably, the couple was in a religious marriage. Malka’s journey between 1933 and 1938 was unclear. Some sources report she moved to Scheveningen in the Netherlands on June 5, 1933. However, according to the aliens’ register, she left for Poland again. In December 1938, Malka returned from Amsterdam, where she stayed temporarily with her sister, to Antwerp. She then went to live with her parents in Steenbokstraat. Her youngest son Mordcha moved with Malka from Amstellaan 112 in Amsterdam to Borgerhout. How he moved from Poland to the Netherlands is not known to us. Malka’s oldest son Israel Jozef had already arrived in Antwerp in 1937 and was living with his grandfather Michael Sperber.
On April 13, 1939 Malka applied for an extension to stay in Antwerp. However, this was refused so she was finally asked to leave the country within fifteen days on August 30, 1939. Officially, Malka was forced to leave the country on September 8, 1939, together with her youngest son Mordcha, but Malka possibly hid with her sons at Michael Sperber’s house in Steenbokstraat. At the end of December 1939, she moved from Steenbokstraat 35 to Bloemstraat 49 in Borgerhout. On January 4, 1940 Malka registered in the aliens’ register. Officially she would stay in the Bloemstraat until July 1941.
In May 1940 Nazi-Germany invaded Belgium. Mother Malka and sons Israel Joseph and Mordcha obeyed the anti-Jewish laws of the occupation authorities. At the end of 1940 they registered in the municipal Register of Jews in Antwerp, and in 1942 they became members of the Jewish Association. Between December 21, 1940 and February 12, 1941, 3,401 Antwerp foreigners – mostly Jews – arrived in Limburg on the orders of the German occupying authorities. They were distributed among 43 villages and towns. Daily they declared their presence in the town hall where they were accommodated. Malka’s family was registered in Alken, Limburg on January 11, 1941, due to this they are probably three of these 3,401 Antwerp exiles. In May 1941, Malka and her sons returned to Antwerp and settled in Lamorinierestraat. At this place they remained until the day they reported themselves to the Dossin Barracks.
Mother and sons were deported from the Dossin Barracks to Auschwitz-Birkenau on August 25, 1942, on Transport V. They, like 487 of the 996 Jews on this transport, accepted the Arbeitseinsatzbefehl, the employment order issued by the Sipo-SD. As “obligated workers,” they were summoned to the assembly camp in Mechelen and then deported. All three were murdered in Auschwitz, as were 99.3 percent of the deportees from this transport. The fate of father Abraham Bezem is unknown to us.
Publication info:
ADRIAENS Ward, STEINBERG Maxime (et al.), Mecheln-Auschwitz, 1942-1944. The destruction of Jews and gypsies from Belgium, 4 volumes (volume 1), Brussels, 2009.
