[3] His teenage daughter from the marriage to Marysia (Mania) Gancwajch, Halinka Merin, survived the Holocaust according to USHMM records,[5] saved by a Polish farmer, name unknown.

[1] Merin is noted to have been very harsh in his dealings with the Jewish groups opposing occupation including Hanoar Hazioni, Hashomer Hatzair, Gordonia, Poalei Zion, and Hitachdut.

Merin aided the Nazis in the hunt for the leaders of the aforementioned groups, going so far as to place a request for their arrest and signing their execution orders himself.

[15] Merin reconfigured the leadership of his councils by expelling those who opposed his methods, and by appointing Jews loyal only to him, including his brother-in-law and a notorious criminal, Abraham Gancwajch,[16] to carry out further Nazi orders in Sosnowiec and its surrounding area.

[17] In spite of his full cooperation with the Nazis, Merin was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in June 1943, one month before the last Holocaust transport left the Sosnowiec Ghetto.