Donio Ekab (1910-1956)

Donio (Donijo) Ekab (Jekab) (3 January 1910, Ostrov, Pleskau Governorate – after 1956) — lawyer.

Ekab Donio was born on 3 January 1910 in Ostrov in the Pleskau Governorate (then part of the Russian Empire), his father was named Israel and his mother Gitl. From 1917, he attended the Alexander Gymnasium in Ostrov. In November 1917 the family moved to Kaunas, where he continued his education at the Kaunas Commercial School.

In August 1919 the family arrived in Latvia. Starting in 1920, Ekab studied at the Riga Jewish municipal primary school, then from 1922 at the Landau Gymnasium, graduating in 1926. He then enrolled to study law at the University of Latvia, completing his degree in 1936. He was granted Latvian citizenship in 1927.

Ekab held several legal-administrative roles: he worked as a courier for a commercial enterprise and, from 1931 to 1935, as a clerk in the office of sworn attorney A. Birkman. Between 1936 and 1937 he performed compulsory military service in the Latvian Army’s 4th Valmiera Infantry Regiment. From 1937, he worked in the legal practice of sworn advocate L. Sverdlin.

Following the Soviet occupation, from 23 July 1940 he served as assistant to L. Sverdlin in Riga, and between February and June 1941 he practised as an attorney at Riga’s 5th Legal Consultancy. In June 1941 he was evacuated to Russia. After World War II, Ekab lived in Sterlitamak in Bashkiria and studied at the Moscow Correspondence Institute of Statistics, Faculty of Planned Economy. In 1950 he was recorded as living in Moscow before eventually returning to Riga. His subsequent fate remains unknown.

In 1938 he married Manya Zakharovich (born 1 July 1909).