This is Dora’s story. 

Dora and her husband Jacques moved from Turkey to Belgium at the beginning of the 20th century. Together, they had two children. Dora was 35 when she was taken to Kazerne Dossin together with her husband and children. The entire family was put on Transport Z, the first of four Sonder transports. The Nazis split the group into two in Brussels. The 68 men were sent to Buchenwald and the 64 women and children to Ravensbrück. Jacques was consequently separated from his wife and daughters.

Dora and her family had a had a special status, they were “political Jews” and were therefore subject to a special regime depending on the diplomatic and military connections of their country of origin. Jews from certain countries with this status, could potentially be exchanged for German prisoners of war.

One of the few exchanges to take place with so-called “political Jews” was the exchange of several Jewish Turks for Germans still in Turkey. On 4 March 1945 a convoy of 105 Turkish Jews left the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. In Lübeck 15 women and children from Ravensbrück were added. They included Dora and her daughters Ida and Corine. The group was taken to Istanbul. On 19 November 1945 they were able to return to Belgium. 

Jacques Halila managed to escape from the evacuation train from Rehmsdorf in April 1945. He was able to reach the Allied lines under his own steam and was brought back to Belgium by plane from Czechoslovakia. Jacques and his family found each other again two years after they left Dossin.

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This is Simon’s story. 

Simon lived in Etterbeek with his parents and sister Ita. His parents ran a leather store. With help from their neighbour, the family decided to go into hiding in a small apartment on the first floor of a house in Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe. On the 17th of March 1943 the Gestapo arrested Simon, Ita and their mother Chana and brought them to Kazerne Dossin.  Léon, who was in the hospital at the time, managed to avoid arrest. Simon and his mother left with 1,598 other prisoners on Transport XX for Auschwitz-Birkenau. Ita was still able to escape because she had chosen Belgian citizenship on her sixteenth birthday. Belgian Jews were not yet being deported at that time. 

Three young men, Youra Livschitz, Jean Franklemon and Robert Maistriau raided the train and managed to open a carriage. In the process, seventeen people were able to jump from the train. People also escaped from other carriages by forcing their way out from the inside. Simon was one of them. He jumped off the train near Borgloon. His mother helped put him on the running board and released him just at the right moment. She was forced to stay behind on the train because she was no longer able to jump. Simon was assisted by people in the area who took him back to Brussels, where he was reunited with his father. Simon’s mother and his sister Ita were killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau. 

Simon and his father Léon remained in hiding at various addresses in Brussels until the end of the war. The loss of his wife and daughter became too much for Léon. He died in despair on 9 July 1945 at their home in Etterbeek. Simon, who was 14 at the time, had to carry on alone. 

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This is Elisabeth’s story.

Elisabeth and her family belonged to the Roma community. In 1909 she married Joseph Karoli, with whom she had twelve children. After their arrival in Belgium, between 1922 and 1924, the family moved around while living in a caravan.  During their stay in Belgium they regularly came into contact with the police and the courts. For example, they were punished for letting a horse run free or because the family positioned their caravan in locations where this was not allowed. The family also received deportation orders on several occasions, but it appears that thosethey were not complied with.

In 1943 Elisabeth was in prison with three of her children, Marie, Charles and Karia, after an alleged theft. In November of that year 19 members of the Karoli family were arrested by the Feldgendarmerie. Those arrested included Elisabeth, her husband Joseph and six of their children.  The Nazis took them to Kazerne Dossin in December and placed them on Transport Z bound for Auschwitz-Birkenau on 15 January 1944. There, she was shot by the nazi’s and died. Her son Stevo was the only member of the family who survived the war. 

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This is Salomon’s story.

Salomon was from the Russian Empire. He was married to Dora Imas, with whom he had two children. According to German records Salomon was a “Schneider” by trade. A possible translation for this is tailor, but it is also possible that they were referring to the fabric store he ran. Salomon moved several times between 1912 and 1942. There are several accounts about where exactly he stayed during these years.  The first entry in Belgian records dates from 1924 when his arrival in Belgium was registered by the Ostend police. Salomon indicated he would only stay in Belgium for a few months, following which he went back to France. In 1925 he was arrested in Paris for passport forgery and was sentenced to a month’s imprisonment. As a result of this, Salomon was given a deportation order in France, which is how he ended up back in Belgium in 1926. Together with his brother, Salomon opened a fabric store in Ghent. 

In the following years multiple incidents occurred in which Salomon was accused of fraud and forgery. That led to a series of arrests and prison stays. In April 1941 an official report was filed against Salomon Rompel, which is the last trace the Belgian police had of him. Presumably he then fled to France.

During the night of 11-12 September 1942 Salomon was arrested during a large scale raid in the French cities of Lille, Lens and Douai. Those arrested were gathered at the Lille-Fives railway station and then transferred to Kazerne Dossin where they were put on Transport X, headed for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where Salomon Rompel was killed.

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This is Esther’s story. 

Esther was the seventh child of the Blau family. In all, there were ten of them: eight children and their parents, Isaac Blau and Helena Goldblatt. Esther spent the first years of her life in Debica in Poland until the family moved to Belgium. They moved into a house in the Zurenborg neighbourhood in Antwerp.

 Between 10 May and 17 July 1940 Isaac Blau and some members of the family tried to escape the violence of war in Koksijde. They returned to Antwerp when the entire country had been occupied. The German occupation forces required Jews to register in the Register of Jews. The Blau family obeyed and all members of the family enrolled. Most of them continued to obey the rules and later bought a yellow Star of David as well.

Esther, Rosie and Anna, the three youngest daughters of the family, were the first to be deported. Esther was 18 years old at the time. All three girls were issued with an Arbeitseinsatzbefehl summoning them to compulsory labour. Failure to comply with an order of this nature could result in punishments for themselves and their families, which is why, on 10 August 1942, the three sisters reported to Kazerne Dossin. They remained in Mechelen for only a few days because on 15 August 1942, the guards put the girls on Transport III, which took the Blau family’s three youngest sisters to Auschwitz-Birkenau. All three of them died there. Only two of the ten members of the Blau family survived the war. Rochma and Abraham, two of the children, managed to flee in time and thus avoided deportation. 

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