The Tumarkin-Lewin family, Blankenberge, 1930s: Estera Lewin, her son Simon, Bernard Tumarkin, her husband, and on her knees, the youngest child, Anna
Born in Antwerp, Bernard Tumarkin worked as a diamond broker in the city. His wife, Esther Lewin, emigrated from Poland in 1910, and acquired Belgian nationality through her marriage. Their two children were born in Antwerp, Simon, in 1924, and Anna in 1929. Although eighteen foreign Jews were arrested in Ramstraat during the great raids of the summer of 1942, the Tumarkin-Lewins, protected by their Belgian nationality, had been left alone. They were finally arrested in their home during Aktion Iltis, the last great anti-Jewisn raid in Belgium. The day after this large-scale operation, 4 September 1943, they were all registered for deportation on Transport 22 B (Belgisch/Jews of Belgian nationality). Deported on 20 September, Bernard Tumarkin, 51, Esther Lewin, 52, Simon, 19, and Anna, 14, then disappear from the records.
