At the age of 14, Heinz Abrahamsohn began training as a locksmith since he was not allowed to continue attending school, as a Jew. He soon had to perform forced labor. His parents were arrested in the 1943 “Operation Factory;” now 16, Abrahamsohn went underground with no money or food ration cards. Soon after going into hiding, he joined the covert Zionist youth group Chug Chaluzi and called himself Zvi from then on.
He found refuge in various places: in the attic of his friend Gad Beck’s family, in his non-Jewish aunt Marie Grünberg’s garden house, in a communist’s allotment shed. His hiding place was betrayed and the Gestapo surprised him in the shed, taking him to the assembly camp at Große Hamburger Straße. He managed to escape through a basement window on the last night of 1943.
In August 1944 Zvi Abrahamsohn and Gad Beck found shelter together. The small apartment was the headquarters of Chug Chaluzi, where eight to ten people often spent the night. The hiding place was betrayed at the beginning of March 1945. Zvi Abrahamsohn was taken to Schulstraße prison, where he was liberated on April 22, 1945. After the war he changed his surname to Aviram.