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Gustav Abineri fled Germany and arrived in Belgium on August 26, 1938. He said he would stay in Belgium pending emigration abroad. Gustav was required to leave Belgium in 1940 but this could not take place due to health problems. He was deported with transport VIII to Auschwitz-Birkenau and did not survive the war.
Gustav Abineri was born on August 26, 1883 in Vienna, the capital of Austria. Gustav later acquired German nationality and arrived in Belgium as a political refugee on August 26, 1938. He went to live at Ons-Heerstraat 29 in Brussels and received a laissez-passer that was initially valid until January 15, 1939 but was repeatedly extended. Gustav said he would stay in Belgium pending emigration abroad. In the meantime, he received help from the Assistance Council for Jewish Refugees, established in 1933 as the Council for Help and Assistance to Victims of Anti-Semitism in Germany. The name was changed in 1938. On December 8, 1939, Gustav was registered in the aliens register in Brussels.
The Belgian authorities considered it unlikely that Gustav would emigrate abroad and therefore asked the German Embassy in Belgium to issue him a passport. So, he could be sent back to Germany. In the meantime, Gustav moved to Dethystraat 16 in Saint-Gilles on January 26, 1940.
In March 1940, the German Embassy provided him with a visa and on May 10, 1940, the day Nazi Germany invaded Belgium, Gustav was arrested and imprisoned in Saint-Gilles. Three days later, on May 13, 1940, he was transferred to a prison in Bruges. After his release on November 13, 1940, he went to live again in Saint-Gilles at Dethystraat 16. Gustav was obliged to leave Belgium, but health problems prevented his repatriation. His stay was extended to November 30, 1940. Gustav registered in the Jewish Register of Saint-Gilles on November 25, 1940.
Gustav finally settled at De Merodestraat 115 in Saint-Gilles. He was arrested in the only major raid in Brussels during the night of 3 to 4 September 1942. Most of the arrested Jews were added to the deportation list of Transport VIII in the Dossin Barracks. This completed the composition of Transport VIII, which left for Auschwitz-Birkenau on September 8. Transport VIII arrived at the extermination center after a two-day journey, on September 10, 1942. Like the two previous transports, this train stopped at Kosel, where an unspecified number of men between the ages of fifteen and fifty, a maximum of 276 persons, had to get out. Gustav was 59 years old at the time and was presumably send to Auschwitz-Birkenau where he was murdered.
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.
