On Thursday 28 November the twelfth edition of the yearly Portraits Ceremony took place in Kazerne Dossin. This year 92 portraits were unveiled. 78 are portraits of victims who were deported from Kazerne Dossin. The other 14 portraits were added to the online monument to Belgian Jews who were deported from France. In total 21.029 deportees have already been given a face on the portrait wall of the museum. This is a living monument that grows year on year. The wall spans four floors and contains photographs or silhouettes representing all 25,843 people who were deported from Kazerne Dossin.
Family members and relatives of victims still donate photographs to the research centre at Kazerne Dossin every year. Moreover, the research team is also continually searching for portraits in archives and at other research institutions, which is how they managed to track down a total of 92 portraits this year. Veerle Vanden Daelen, curator and coordinator of Collections & Research explained: “Kazerne Dossin has been collaborating with other institutions in this respect for many years. For example, with the State Archives or the Felix Archives in Antwerp. This year 18 new portraits were added thanks to the successful collaboration with Lille-Fives, an organisation based in northern France.”
To dedicate and unveil the new portraits, Kazerne Dossin hosts an annual Portrait Ceremony during which the victims are remembered and Kazerne Dossin researchers recount their search for photographs during the previous year. Chairperson Marleen Vanderpoorten, curator and coordinator of Collections & Research Veerle Vanden Daelen and archivist Dorien Styven all took to the floor during the ceremony.
The ceremony was recorded in its entirety. You can find the recording here.
