The Shipping Agencies of Antoine Makzume and Lionel Makzume - Osman Öndeş

Antoine (Tony) Makzume’s mother was Lila Falanga, from an Istanbul Maltese/British family. Antoine Makzume’s father Emile was a cousin of Lionel Makzume. Lionel Makzume married İstikbal hanım from İskenderun and they had 3 children, one a girl. Antoine Makzume is the younger brother of Paola, who was also the mother of Edoardo Levante.

Emile Makzume died in 1932 when Antoine was 10. His wife, Lila, died shortly afterwards in 1933 from cancer. Paola Levante stepped in and help raise the orphan Antoine Makzume. Until 1940 Antoine Makzume went to the French Antoura Lycee in Beirut. After 1940 he read law in the law faculty of Istanbul University. He returned to Iskenderun in 1945 and started working. A year later he married Elena, from the Italian Girardi family who had settled in Aleppo, Syria - view a lettercover from 1902. During WWII when Syria was occupied by British troops this family escaped to neutral Hatay, Turkey. Antoine did his military service as a reserve officer in Bursa, but because of the restrictive laws at the time prevented military personel being married to foreigners, the wife had to take Turkish citizenship.

When Emile Makzume was alive, he was the regional representative of a number of German lines, the most important being Deutche Levant Linie. With his death in 1933 Alfredo Levante took over these agencies. During WWII no German ships docked in Iskenderun. When Antoine Makzume completed his military service in 1946 he went to Germany and he re-obtained the agencies of all the various German shipping lines his father used to represent including Atlas Levante. The company grew and in time his son and son-in-law took control of the company and the company still operates under this name. Antoine died aged 63 (1985).