Isaac Greif

Isaac Greif, a Polish painter and decorator, was arrested on the De Keyserlei in Antwerp on 19 July 1936. He was living in Belgium illegally and also belonged to the circle of the Hungarian Communist leader Moses Hammerman. Isaac was expelled to France, from where he travelled to Spain and joined the International Brigades to fight Franco’s nationalists in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). 

Isaac did not return to Belgium until January 1940. He was placed in the refugee centre at Merksplas, where he was arrested by the Belgian authorities on 10 May 1940 as a ‘suspect’, transferred to the French administration and interned at Pau – a French prison for political extremists. Isaac was sent to Gurs in the summer of 1940 and subsequently to Drancy. He was deported from the assembly camp on 12 August 1942 via Transport 18 to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Although Isaac Greif (30) was selected for work on arrival, he did not survive deportation. He died after enduring more than four months of slave labour.