Summary
Romi Goldmuntz, a renowned Antwerp diamond merchant who directed part of the flight of Antwerp’s Jews, was involved in the winter 1940 plan to send diamond experts to Palestine, and co-founded COFDI in London in October 1940 (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.45, p.79).
Details
- Antwerp’s Jews fled mainly to Southern France and England, directed in part by mayor Camille Huysmans and dealer Romi Goldmuntz (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.45).
- With Herman Schamisso he conceived the COFDI idea, knowing how to read the challenge posed by Palestine’s specialization in small stones and the growing American demand for stones cut and polished there (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.79).
- In London Goldmuntz represented capital and Huysmans the state in a pattern De Vries parallels with Ben-Ami and Walsh in Palestine (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.80).
- He was among the experienced diamond figures, with Ernst Oppenheimer, George Prins and Frederick Mathias, who advised the British and placed expectation on the “limited expansion” principle (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.86).
- Chapter 2 note 47 gives his biography: Romi Benjamin Goldmuntz, born in Krakow (Poland) in 1882 and died in Antwerp in 1960; he arrived in Belgium at a young age, began learning diamond cutting, and in 1902 opened his own workshop, which in 1920 employed six hundred employees; with his brother Leopold (later diamond policy advisor to Camille Huysmans) he became one of the DTC’s most important sightholders; on the morrow of the German occupation he moved to Cognac, advised the industry’s refugees to move to London, arrived there in late July 1940, and together with Huysmans and Herman Schamisso (born Strasov, Ukraine, in 1890; arrived in Belgium in 1907; returned to Antwerp in 1945 and died there in 1957) established COFDI (Diamonds and War — State, Capital, and Labor in British-Ruled Palestine, PDF p.296).