The Nagiel-Amtmann family

The Nagiel-Amtmann family had four members: the father, Elja Noech Nagiel, the mother, Margula Amtmann, and their two children, Joseph, born in Antwerp in 1940 before the invasion, and Félix, born in 1941 in Etterbeek, a borough of Brussels. The parents were Jewish immigrants from Poland. Margula Amtmann arrived in 1928, and Elja Noech Nagiel in 1931. He worked as a clockmaker. The family was taken to the Dossin Barracks on 13 October 1942. The Nagiel-Amtmanns had left their legal domicile, Rue Vanderlinden in Schaerbeek and had found clandestine accommodation close by, at 76 Rue Gallait. Anti-Jewish fanatics, who styled themselves as “a group of Belgian nationals” betrayed them to La Défense du Peuple, the anti Jewish league. On 24 October Transport 14, which formed part of the same train as Transport 15, took the Nagiel-Amtmanns to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Upon arrival on the 26th, the family was separated on the platform in front of the Birkenau camp. The mother and her two young children were immediately put into the queue for the gas chamber. This was the fate of 83% of all the women and girls. Elja Noech Nagiel’s destiny was quite different. He was selected to work in the concentration camp complex and was identified by registration number 70.798, which was tattooed on his left forearm. Shortly after registration, he was sent to the Jawisowitz Kommando. At the end of 1944, during the evacuation of the prisoners from Auschwitz, he was sent to Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg where he was liberated in May 1945. He returned to Belgium on 31 May 1945.