Song sung by Isabella’s great-grandchild Ameet Kanon (aka Queen George) , who explained today – Friday , December 1, 2023 – at the premiere :
“The Abbey – it’s been so special and personal keeping you to myself, but your message was always too big for me not to share it …
… This is Isabella Weinreb Castegnier. She is my great-grandmother. On April 19th, 1943, pregnant with my grandmother, she jumped out of a moving train headed to Auschwitz. She was being sent to her death, simply because she was a Jew. She understood that it was now or never, die at the destination or die trying, so she jumped. In the years to follow this epic jump, the Abbeys of Brussels became a place of hiding, survival, and safety for them time and time again.”
Silent film — Towards the end of World War I – in the summer 1918 , after the Allies defeated the Germans in the Second Battle of the Marne – large groups of Belgians and French refugees flee in front of the retreating enemy force to the neutral Netherlands.
The Dutch army and Red Cross prepared to receive a possible 100,000 evacuees in the border towns in the south of the Netherlands.
After wandering weeks in the north of France , and next crossing Belgium on foot, the first group of French refugees arrived at the Dutch border October 20, completely exhausted.
At the gate in the electric wire fence at the border to the Netherlands – the so-called ‘Death Wire’ (dutch : Dodendraad ) Dutch soldiers took them over from German escorts.
Some refugees had travelled by tram part of the route crossing Belgium to the belgian border town Molenbeersel.
At the dutch border the refugees were welcomed and ladies from relief committees provide the refugees with food and drinks on the road to Stramproy in the Netherlands.
Within days , thousands of French refugees arrive in the village of Stramproy and are transferred to the city of Weert .
On arrival in the city center of Weert the dutch army registered people and handed out soup and bread.
The weak, the sick, and maternity women were cared for by the Red Cross and taken to an aid post for further care.
The refugees were sheltered the night in buildings like convents and schools in Weert, before being housed elsewhere in the country the following days.
References
Source (video footage) : Belgische vluchtelingen 1e Wereldoorlog. Open Images | Beeld & Geluid (Sound &Vision).
Weert en het einde van W.O.-I. | Jan Henkens | Stichting Historisch Onderzoek Weert | URL http://www.showeert.nl
Short impression of Viviane telling her story April 2023 in Boortmeerbeek, Belgium, at the 80th anniversary of the attack on Transport XX near Boortmeerbeek — the Twentieth Train heading for Auschwitz, the night of April 19-20, 1943. Viviane escaped from Transport XX in the womb of her pregnant mother Isabella Weinreb-Castegnier who jumped from this death train, with the help of Elias Gnazik, shortly after the 2nd attack on this train near Bierbeek, Belgium. Viviane was born 6 months later October 30, 1943 in Brussels … and celebrates her 80th birthday today, October 30, 2023, in LA, USA ;) Music : Al Kol Ele by Crescendo Boortmeerbeek Choir .
Full story available in free e-Book download :
Viviane Yarom-Castegnier & Michel van der Burg. Viviane’s Story: Escape from Transport XX… Born 6 Months Later [e-Book]. Boskoop, Miracles.Media, 2019. Distribution [ISBN (ePUB) : 978-94-93147-00-3 | ISBN (pdf) : 978-94-93147-01-0]. URL https://miracles.media/vivianesstory/
Citation : Viviane – 80 Years After Escape From Transport XX | 20231030 | Michel van der Burg | Miracles•Media | TakeNode 84175450-c147-4fd9-9039-8ca85995ff46
New image edition created for post Story of Righteous Nelly • Quintart aka Quintard .
TakeNode 50639a50-21f7-41dd-ab15-f5b89a7d0edd
References
Story of Righteous Nelly • Quintart aka Quintard | 20230526 | Renée Cassin & Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com | ISSN 2949-9313 | URL https://settela.com/2023/05/26
Images from the Westerborkfilm have been used countless times in documentaries and films about the Second World War. Here images screening in the virtual opera PUSH – based on the story of Simon Gronowski – an 11 year old Jewish boy who was pushed from the train – Transport XX – by his mother on the way to Auschwitz — Video clip https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxsM6Rj_HB0xEh4TksbjhIm4EzY81dc4H0
A virtual performance, during the April 2020 Corona virus lockdown, of the epilogue of the community opera PUSH , entitled : Ma Vie N’est Que Miracles | My life is only miracles – hosted by composer Howard Moody. It premiered on the night of the 19th April 2020, exactly 77 years after three Brussels resistance heroes stopped the Nazi train Transport XX, transporting 1600 Jewish deportees to Auschwitz, and more than 200 prisoners escaped from the train before the German border. Info : michelvanderburg.com/2020/04/19 .
Images from the Westerborkfilm have been used countless times in documentaries and films about the Second World War.
Here Westerborkfilm images – clips – screening semi-permanent ten years ago (Feb. 2013) in a museum introduction film (on holocaust, genocides, discrimination, diversity, rights) on one of the huge columns in the entrance hall of the Kazerne Dossin museum in Mechelen, Belgium (a few months after opening of the new Kazerne Dossin building). Note, shortly after this outbound deportation transport to Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz, had left the Westerbork transit camp on May 19, 1944, the train paused at the nearby railway station of the dutch town Assen, where train cars were added from Belgian Transport XXV (25) with 508 deportees, Jews and the Roma deportee Stevo Caroli, from transit camp Kazerne Dossin (Dossin barracks) in Mechelen, and this combined transport with Jews, Sinti and Roma, including Settela Steinbach, continues to the east…to the Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz concentration camps. Stevo Caroli survives Auschwitz-Birkenau. After returning to Belgium, Stevo Caroli’s request for a certificate, necessary for the compensation for political deportees or work refusers, is refused by the Belgian Aliens Police for racial reasons ( kazernedossin.memorial/biografie/stevo-karoli/ ).
JR: Chronicles • LOTTE Museum of Art, Seoul, South Korea • May 3rd – August 6th, 2023
After its inaugural exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in New York (1), and a European tour (2) at the Saatchi Gallery in London (UK), the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands (3), and next in Germany at the Kunsthalle in Munich, JR: Chronicles is now for the first time in Asia at the LOTTE Museum of Art in Seoul (South Korea).
The INSIDE OUT installation in the JR: Chronicles exhibition is screening our original film on Brussels’ Afghan refugees that was published first online for World Refugee Day June 20th 2016 : Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild (4) . This film wasn’t replaced by the special exhibition edition (with updated credits) we offered (Sep 2019) for the premiere of JR: Chronicles in the Brooklyn Museum. We later did publish that new 4K edition online , entitled “Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild ~ JR: Chronicles Edition” (5).
Post reference JR: Chronicles LOTTE Museum Seoul | 20230716 | Miracles•Media
Filmography
1. JR: New York Show – Afghan Refugees Inside Out Belgium. URL michelvanderburg.com/2020/02/06 2. JR Groninger Show – Afghan Refugees Inside Out . URL michelvanderburg.com/2022/01/07 3. JR: Chronicles Groninger Museum. URL michelvanderburg.com/2023/03/01 4. Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild. URL michelvanderburg.com/2016/06/20 . 5. Béguinage Refugees Into The Wild ~ JR: Chronicles Edition. URL michelvanderburg.com/2020/02/05
