Looking back on his life, Aaron Alembik considered himself lucky despite the hardships of growing up Jewish in Nazi-conquered Europe.
It was his family’s good fortune to leave eastern France before the German invasion of May 1940 and resettle near the southwestern French town of Longwy. There the Vichy regime’s collaborators weren’t nearly as efficient as the SS and Gestapo at sending Jews to death camps. There residents of Longwy refused to tell Vichy authorities that the Alembik family was hiding in a barn outside town. Instead, townspeople helped Aaron and his family to survive, bringing them food and ration cards.
Aaron and his family were lucky again when the war ended because they had relatives who had settled in Columbus, Ga., and could sponsor the Alembiks, thus enabling them to immigrate to America.
A few years later he made a smart choice, opting to go to college and law school in Washington, D.C., instead of accepting an offer to learn the tailoring trade. Years later Alembik recalled his mother saying back then, “We have enough Alembik tailors. We don’t need any more.”
Another fortuitous event occurred in Washington. There he met his wife-to-be, Judy Miller, and they embarked on what friends describe as a 53-year romance. Eventually they became partners at law as well as in matrimony.
Aaron Alembik, 83, died Thursday at his Sandy Springs residence of respiratory failure. His funeral is 2 p.m. Sunday at H.M. Patterson & Son’s Arlington Chapel. Interment will follow at Arlington Memorial Park.
Alembik made his reputation and a comfortable living as a real estate attorney. One of his principal clients was Newburger-Andes & Co. Its co-owner and vice president, Jerry Andes of Atlanta, said Alembik represented his firm for more than 40 years.
“Aaron was an excellent attorney, handling countless commercial real estate negotiations and closings for us,” Andes said. “He was highly respected in the real estate business here.”
Julius Alembik of Dunwoody, a second cousin and an attorney himself, said Aaron Alembik’s reverence for the law was inspirational. “You can credit the high proportion of lawyers we now have in our family to Aaron’s example,” he said.
“Aaron conducted himself like an Old World gentleman,” said Julius Alembik. “He never lost his French accent. He was unfailingly polite and dignified with others regardless of their station in life. And he almost never talked about himself; instead he listened intently to others.”
Murray Lynn of Sandy Springs first met Aaron Alembik in 1956 at a Jewish community center on Peachtree Street. “We each were Holocaust survivors looking for someone with similar experiences who was intent on restoring a broken life. We’ve been friends ever since.”
Lynn said he thinks of Alembik as “a moral edifice.”
“He never deviated from principles of rectitude and righteousness. He balanced that with a special compassion for the poor and the underprivileged and a strong sense of social justice.”
Even though Alembik had deeply held feelings about public policy, Lynn said he never heard his friend utter a disparaging remark about political polar-opposites.
Surviving in addition to his wife are two sons, Marc Alembik of Occoquan, Va., and Gary Alembik of Atlanta; and a sister, Ida Libfeld of Tel Aviv, Israel.
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