Abraham Fischler, who returned to Antwerp after World War II and rebuilt the city’s diamond center, died Sept. 9 at 78. Fischler, who was born in 1925, ran away from home at 15 and made his way to Cuba, where he spent most of the war. After the war, he returned to Belgium and found that his parents and siblings had died in the Holocaust. After the war, he started Fischler Diamonds with two cousins and grew it into a major worldwide firm. As head of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses, he helped establish rules to regulate the illegal trade of rough diamonds in Africa.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.