Abraham Menist (nickname Ab) completed technical school and became a furniture maker. In the First World War, he refused to do his military service, for which he received a prison sentence of ten months. By the end of the war, he went to work in construction as a bricklayer. He joined a youth group for total abstinence. In 1920, he joined the communist party. He married a non-Jewish woman. The mixed marriage caused a rift with his father who was an orthodox Jew.
In 1924, Abraham Menist became a salaried trade union officer of the Federation of Construction Workers. He resigned from the communist party. He was co-founder of the Revolutionary Socialist Party. This party fused in 1935 with the Independent Socialistic Party to the Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party (RSAP). For this party, he was elected to become a councillor of the Rotterdam town council and a member of the Provincial Council of South-Holland.
From the start of the occupation, Abraham Menist co-operated with the RSAP leader Henk Sneevliet in the national leaderwhip of the Marx-Lenin-Luxemburg-Front (MLL). He was in charge of the distribution of the illegal publication 'Spartacus'. Abraham Menist was condemned to two weeks detention in February 1940 for offending the friendly head of state Hitler.
In March 1942, Menist was picked up in Amsterdam. Together with Sneevliet, he was put on trial and given a death sentence. The condemned had to wait for their sentence to be executed in camp Amersfoort. Abraham Menist was executed on 13 April 1942 on the Leusderheide.
NIOD, Erelijst Verzet en Koopvaardij, database made by J.W. de Leeuw;
B. Braber, Zelfs als wij zullen verliezen. Joden in verzet en illegaliteit in Nederland 1940-1945 (Amsterdam, 1990) 119-122
After Ab Menist was released, in the autumn of 1918, he was trained to become a diamond polisher. At the age of 23, he became a ‘polisher at the mill’ and a member of the ANDB. After about three years he left this sector because it was in decline, and because of his aversion to the speculative value of diamonds, which was out of all proportion to the man-hours spent on them. Ab Menist then spent a year working in the offices of De Nieuwe Amsterdammer (a weekly publication). After that, he became a mason. He was also on the board of the Nationaal Arbeidssecretariaat (National Labour Secretariat, a federation of trade unions).
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For additional informtation, see:
D. de Winter, Ab Menist. Revolutionair-socialistisch vakbondsleider, politicus en verzetsstrijder (2010)