After the raid on the Jewish neighbourhoods of Brussels on the night of 3 September 1942, Moïse Francès realises that he must find a hiding place for himself, his wife, son and daughter.

Max Lanes stayed briefly in the Dossin Barracks, but was transferred to the prison at Saint-Gilles. He was deported from there to Auschwitz-Birkenau. As a result, his name does not appear on the transport lists. His brothers Arthur and Gustav were deported from the Dossin Barracks.

Mejlech Dunkelblau and Ryfka Schwarz were both born in Rzeszów, Poland. Anna Dunkelblau was born on November 15, 1906. Mejlech and Ryfka lived unofficially separated. Mejlech was deported on transport XXIV from the Dossin Barracks to Auschwitz-Birkenau and was murdered there. Ryfka and Anna were not deported and survived the war.

Louis Alexander fled Germany in 1934. He married Elisabeth Nykerk in Schaerbeek on August 6, 1938. Louis was arrested in 1940 and deported to Perpignan in France. After his release, he was arrested again and deported with transport XXIV. Louis died in 1945 in Theresienstadt. Elisabeth presumably stayed in the Netherlands and survived.

The whole Wahl-Keller family, except from father Seinwel Hersz Wahl and daughter Lea, was deported from the Dossin Barracks in Mechelen to Auschwitz-Birkenau. No one survived the deportation. Seinwel survived the war but died already in 1946.

This family was strongly affected by the horrors of the Second World War.

Lotte joined the communist resistance to destabilise the Wehrmacht.

Hertha Ligeti joined the communist resistance to destabilise the Wehrmacht.

The Borenchole-Landsberg family was deported with transport XX from the Dossin Barracks in Mechelen to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Mother Fejga and daughter Thérèse were murdered. Their son, Salomon, was not deported and survived the war. Father Abraham Joseph survived his captivity in Auschwitz and came back to Belgium in 1945, together with Salomon.

The Margulies-Mahler family obtained the naturalization in 1926 which granted them Belgian citizenship. Anne, Jacques, Helena-Ella, Liliane and Armand were deported with transport XXIIB to Auschwitz-Birkenau. They were murdered. Georges Mahler went into hiding in Aarschot with his wife Selma Lichtmann and children Charles and Nanette. They were never arrested and survived World War II.

The story of how a Polish representative of Belgian companies became a member of the resistance. Szmul spent time in many different camps, but managed to escape several times.

The newlyweds survive the war.

The couple escaped the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. A recent testimony provides the reconstruction of their incredible life story.

Engels

Thanks to the kind women Balthus and Allard, the children are able to go into hiding in the Fraiture castle and survive the war.

This entire family of Polish Jews was deported, the majority of them on Transport 10.

Renée, 5, and Nathan, 3, were arrested in the night of 15-16 September 1942 in their home at 189 Kroonstraat, during the last of the great raids in Antwerp.

Natan Ramet was born in Warsaw on 5 June 1925. Natan and his father were deported on Transport VI on 29 August 1942. The transport stopped in Kosel, before Auschwitz, where the men were disembarked to be deployed as forced labourers.

The Sipo-SD summoned the father, 41, the mother, 48, Szmul Herszek, 17, and even the youngest, Isidor, 12, to the Dossin Sammellager on the 17th of August.

These Dutch Jews from Antwerp, Emilius Vos, a 31-year-old diamond worker, Rebecca Nabarro, 28 and their children lived in what was called the Jewish quarter, which lay within the bounds of the second great nighttime raid organized in Antwerp.

Leon Rotsein, a Russian Jew, who emmigrated in 1929, was arrested in Charleroi, where he lived, on 7 August 1941.

Mendel Majer Sztejnberg, a young Jew from Kaluszyn in Poland, travelled to the West alone. He settled in Brussels in 1920. He worked as a cobbler in shoe repair shops all over the capital.

Born in Romania Mosché Fingherman, 40, was a shopkeeper who lived on Plantin Moretuslei in Borgerhout in Antwerp. His wife, Rosa Obrijan, 42, was also a Romanian Jew. All their children were born in Antwerp.

The Grycman-Berkowicz family had five members. They arrived in the Dossin Barracks on 5 October, but only stayed there for five days, as they were put on board Transport 12, which left Mechelen on 10 October.

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.

Szmul Potaszewicz, a Polish Jew, arrived in Belgium in 1923. Marie Zawadzka joined him a year later. In 1925, their daughter, Juliette, was born in Charleroi.

Kurt Friedrich Posener was a German Jew who had sought refuge in Brussels shortly after the Kristallnacht on 9 November 1938. His son, Ludwig, then aged 12, came with him.

Baruch Brand and his wife, Ita Berger, were Polish Jews who had settled in Antwerp. Their daughter, Augusta Suzanna, was born in December 1938.

Szymon Sukiennik was 6 years old when he arrived in Belgium in 1929 with his parents, Chana Szumilinski and Rafal Sukiennik, and his older sister, Liba.

Moise Wekselman was a Polish Jew and arrived in Belgium in 1919, just after the First World War. Malka Altman left Poland in 1922 and settled in Antwerp, where their children were born: Juliette in 1927 and Alice in 1930.

Joseph Hakker was a Dutch Jew who arrived in Belgium in 1907 when he was only 20.

Berta Landskroner and Leib Reig were Jewish refugees expelled from the Reich in 1939 who settled in Brussels.

Fiszel Abram Lipszyc, a Polish Jew, emigrated in 1929. He married Anna Majlechowitz during the occupation.

Lithuanian Jews, Mendelis Goldsteinas and Hinda Vistinezki emigrated to Belgium in 1924 and 1925 respectively.

Nisen Karolinski and Tauba Hena Makofka emigrated in 1929. They were accompanied by their seven children, all born in Warsaw.

Paul Halter was born in Geneva on 10 October 1920. He was just one year old when he came to Belgium with his parents, Jozef Halter and Ryfka Horowitz, both Polish Jews.

Feiwel Gruszow, a diamond worker, emigrated from Poland in 1909, and Ilse Oppenheimer from Germany in 1928.

Hans Maier was an Austrian Jew who had fled to Belgium in 1939. He settled in Brussels. He was arrested as “suspect” on 10 May 1940 by the as yet independent Belgian State.

Rosa Keck, a Gypsy of German nationality, gave birth to her first two children in Germany, Rudolf, in Deutz, near Cologne, in 1932, and Sophia, in Kreuznach, also near Cologne, in 1935.

Robert was the ‘nom de guerre’ Israel Majer Mandelbaum used in the Jewish Defence Committee (CDJ). A Jew from Lublin, like his wife Estera Wajnmann, he emigrated to Brussels with her in 1932.

David Lachman, a Polish Jew, came to Belgium in 1929 at the age of 6 with his father, Berck, his mother, Garna Kozak, and younger brother, Michal Icchok, who was 3 at the time.

The Chapochnik-Zimmerman family emigrated from Romania between 1920 and 1922. Their names were entered in the register of Jews at the end of 1940.