Jozef Djament was the second son, born June 1, 1909, in Tarnow. Adored by his younger brothers, who called him Jozek, he was considered by them to be the handsomest and smartest of the family. He, not Roman, became the de facto head of the family after Itzhak’s death, and was often looked to as a “fixer” when any member had problems. For example, he was the one who got Jakub into university in Lwow.

Despite his obvious smarts, and a fluency in German, Jozef did not have a stellar academic career.  He skipped high school altogether, but passed the exam known as the matura to earn a leaving certificate, or high school equivalence. Nor did he go to university until much later – he had found his calling in journalism. At a very young age he became a correspondent and columnist at the Nowy Dziennik (New Journal), a Polish-language Jewish newspaper. There he wrote commentary on politics and economics under the name Vir, Latin for “Man”. A cpuple of  his articles have survived, translated by his nephew Vladimir and can be read on the Memorabilia page.

In 1933, he published a book entitled "W Slepej Uliczce: Agonia Gospodarcza Zydow w Polsce". (Dead End: The Economic Agony of the Jews in Poland).  It is dedicated to “my Mother, with deep love and respect.”  Copies of it are in the library at the Jagiellonian University, and Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

It was because of his profession that the family name came to be written as “Diament.” (see Stories: What's in a name)

Jozef was very successful with the ladies. In spite of, or because of his success, he never married. He was on his way to visit his then girlfriend in Lwow on July 21, 1941 shortly after the Germans had taken the city from the Soviets. He was shot to death by Ukrainian nationalists who, in two pogroms that month, murdered an estimated 6,000 Jews in the city.  

Israel Djament (Julek Rutkowski as he was later to become) was born in Tarnow, southern Poland on the 19th of May, 1911. He was the third and middle of the five Djament brothers.

After graduating from the Krakow Polytechnic as a structural engineer, he moved to Warsaw in 1938 and was employed as a resident engineer for a construction company. During the war he spent most of his time in southern Poland where, hiding his Jewish background,  he continued to work as a structural engineer in a number of places. He obtained false papers under the name 'Rutkowski' and this enabled him to survive the war (In October 1994 he wrote his war time memoirs). As the war was nearing its inevitable end, he married and eventually moved, with his family, to Warsaw where he was employed by the Polish government in the rebuilding process.  His son Adam was born in 1945, just as the war was coming to the end.  His second child, daughter Alice was born in 1952.

In 1958, deciding that Poland was not an ideal place to bring up a young family, he packed up all the family belongings and moved to Sydney, Australia. After his beloved wife Irena died in 1968, he remarried in 1971 and continued to live in Sydney. He  practiced his profession until his retirement in 1976. He and his second wife (also Irena) lived together in Vaucluse until they could no longer look after themselves. They moved to a retirement home in St Ives where he died aged 94 on the 3rd of July, 2005. His son Adam wrote his biography in 2008.

Samuel Djament (Stefan Drobot) was born on August 7, 1913 in Cracow (Kraków), Poland. He and his twin brother, Jakub (Jan Drobot) were the youngest of five children. Samek, as he was called, graduated from high school in 1931 and immediately began studies at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, where in 1938 he earned Master’s degree in mathematics with a thesis entitled “On the mathematical theory of struggle for survival.”  He also studied physics at the same university, earning a “Certificate of Completion”. In addition, he studied at the Warsaw Polytechnic where he received “Half-a-Diploma” from the engineering department. In 1939, after Poland was invaded by Germany and Russia, he found himself in Lwów, in the eastern part of Poland. From there, he and his twin brother moved deep into the middle of Siberia to a town then called Stalinsk, since renamed Novokuznetsk, where he spent the war. In Stalinsk he met his wife, Natalie, and had his first child, son Vladimir, born in 1941. In 1946 he was allowed to go back to Poland, and he settled in Wroclaw. There, he became a member of the department of mathematics at the Wroclaw Polytechnic Institute. In addition to his teaching and scientific work, he held several administrative appointments. In 1949 he and his wife became parents again, they had twins: Frank and Kathy.

In 1959, together with his family, he immigrated to the United States. He held positions at the University of Chicago (1959-1960), University of Notre Dame (1960-1963) and the Ohio State University (1963-1983). In 1983 he became ill and never recovered. In 1993 he moved to San Jose, California, to be close to his sons. He died on September 29th 1998. His ashes are buried in San Jose. He was passionate about mathematics  ̶  it was the most important thing in his life. He was well liked and respected by his students and colleagues, see an obituary by two of his former students and later co-workers from Wroclaw: Waclaw Kasprzak and Rościslaw Rabczuk. He had eight Ph.D. students, wrote one book and about 30 scientific papers. His son Vladimir provided a personal perspective.

Jakub Djament (Jan Drobot) was the youngest of the five brothers. He was born a few minutes after his twin, Samuel, on Aug. 7, 1913. Growing up, the two of them engaged in every trick known to identical twins, from passing as each other to writing each other’s exams.

Kuba, as he was known, studied electrical engineering at the university of Lwow. He got his master’s degree at the German Polytechnic in Brno, in what was then Czechoslovakia. Early in the war, he found himself in Russian-occupied Lwow. As life became increasingly difficult for Jews, he and Samuel signed up to volunteer to work in the Soviet Union. The found themselves in Novokuznetsk, formerly Stalinsk, in Siberia. Jakub spent most of his time there in outlying areas helping to construct power lines.

When the war ended, the twins returned to Poland believing they were the only survivors of the family. Jakub joined the Communist Party and, on the advice of his superiors, changed his name to the less Jewish Jan Drobot, a name he took from a long ago Ukrainian classmate. Working for the Polish government, he  spent time building power plants in Katowice and Krakow, and became head of Energobudowa, the national power company. His CV details his significant professional experience. In 1948, he married Wanda Lew, a widow with an infant son, Adam, whom he adopted. A daughter, Ewa (Eve) was born in 1951. Joining the Ministry of Trade, he was sent to India as commercial counselor. In 1960, when his tour of duty was over, he defected to the United States.

After a few years trying out life in the United States and England, he finally settled in New York, where he joined Westinghouse International. In 1968, he was sent to run their office in New Delhi. He stayed there for eight years, until the political situation made it impossible — Indira Gandhi nationalized all foreign firms and Westinghouse closed its office, forcing him into retirement.

He and Wanda moved to the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. Wanda died in 1998, and Jan eventually moved in with Adam. In 2001, he moved to live with Eve in Toronto, where he died on Nov. 14, 2007 at the age of 94.  His  obituary, written by his daughter Eve appeared in the “Globe and Mail” on Nov 20, 2007.