Faces of the attackers and escapees of Transport XX reflecting in the windows of this train leaving Boortmeerbeek station direction Mechelen, during the commemoration May 15, 2011 of Transport XX to Auschwitz.
The night of April 19, 1943, the 20th convoy left the transit camp Kazerne Dossin in Mechelen, with 1631 jewish deportees in circa 33 cattle cars heading for Auschwitz.
After passing the Boortmeerbeek train station, the three young Brussels’ heroes Youra Livschitz, Robert Maistriau, and Jean Franklemon, attacked this 20th convoy, opening one of the cars, and liberating 17 people.
A total of 238 deportees managed to escape from this death train before the Belgian border, by opening the cattle cars from the inside, with the help of some 20 jewish resistance fighters among the deportees, and also a second hold-up shortly after midnight at Korbeek-Lo.
The total number of 238 escapees (data update April 2024) , includes (i) the 17 people liberated during the attack in Boortmeerbeek, (ii) the escape of the 6-year-old boy Aron Luksenberg (a recent finding by Jo Peeters) , and (iii) the escape of Viviane , who escaped in the womb of her three-months pregnant mother Isabella Weinreb-Castegnier, and was born 6 months later in Brussels (Miracles.Media).
Just over half of the number of escapees – a total of 122 – managed to escape permanently — 26 escapees were shot dead when they jumped, and 90 escapees were recaptured and redeported…
Notes
Reflection shows the Transport XX – installation Boortmeerbeek, of four large canvases of three meters high and five meters wide placed ‘wagon-like’ next to each other, parallel to the Mechelen-Leuven railway line, with portraits of deported Jews who managed to escape from the XXth transport on Belgian territory. The first of the four large canvases also features the three young men who stopped the train, Youra (Georges) Livschitz, Jean Franklemon and Robert Maistriau.
The Transport XX – installation Boortmeerbeek was created for the 2007 Boortmeerbeek commemoration of Transport XX, with the theme: ‘Give Them a face’, and later commemoration events, thanks to Marc Michiels (commemoration coordinator) in collaboration with Marjan Verplancke and co-workers of the project “Give Them a Face” of Kazerne Dossin / Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance in Mechelen (Belgium) . Portraits of escapees are mostly from the State Archives, Brussels, digitized by Kazerne Dossin. Boortmeerbeek.
Citation info : Resistance | Miracles Moment #2 | Miracles•Media | 20240515 | ISAN 0000-0007-36B4-0002-A-0000-0000-7 | TakeNode bc70ea7c-278e-4f84-982c-4e926030c405
Lanterns ceremony today Sunday April 23, 2023, in Boortmeerbeek following a bike ride from Brussels , honoring Youra Livschitz, Robert Maistriau, and Jean Franklemon, who 80 years ago – the night of April 19th 1943 – came on bike from Brussels to Boortmeerbeek to attack and stop with a lantern the deportation train ‘Transport XX’ heading for Auschwitz, and liberate Jewish prisoners from one of the cattle cars.
License info : Lanterns Ceremony Transport XX | 20230423 | Miracles•Media | TakeNode 6a799396-0b4f-4352-85b4-f1a58d27e184
Robert’s shirt with sewn up bullet holes | 20230409 | Miracles•Media | Shirt the 14 year old Robert was wearing when shot in his chest as he jumped April 19, 1943 from the 20th convoy – together with his parents Bertha and Eddy Rottenberg. Detail of the neatly sewn up bullet holes is shown in the bottom-right image. Photo’s taken Nov. 19, 2012 by Audrey Rogers Furfaro and edited by Michel van der Burg (michelvanderburg.com).
Update — A Story of Transport XX – April 19, 1943 – by Audrey Rogers Furfaro | 20230409 | Miracles•Media | Story originally told April 2008 by Audrey Rogers Furfaro, and next posted Nov 2012 at michelvanderburg•com illustrated with the shirt the 14 year old Robert was wearing when shot in his chest as he jumped April 19, 1943 from the 20th convoy – together with his parents Bertha and Eddy Rottenberg.
A new finding – published at the current 236 exhibition in Brussels – is the location were the family escaped – they were numbers 722, 723, and 724. The Rottenberg family jumped close to Houppertingen, just before the site Simon Gronowski jumped, before Borgloon. That map is showing in a recent video of the vernisage of the ‘236’ project:
In the night of April 19-20 at 2 AM the Belgian partisans Romain Baplu, Albert Poncelet, Pieter Schepers (and M. Swinnen)* – operating in the Leuven Partisans group – attacked Transport XX just outside Leuven by building a barricade of tree trunks on the track at Korbeek-Lo, that slowed down the 20th Convoy of 1631 Jews in cattle cars, being deported from the Dossin barracks transit camp in Mechelen to Auschwitz , and thus helped many of the deportees to escape, jumping from the death train, between Korbeek-Lo and Tienen. That was the 2nd attack that night. Earlier , a first attack was performed before Leuven between Boortmeerbeek and Haacht by the three young Brussels’ heroes Youra Livschitz (Dr. Georges Livschitz ; aka Livchitz), Robert Maistriau, and Jean Franklemon, who liberated 17 people during an attack by opening one of the cattle cars.
Romain Baplu from Louvain (Leuven, Belgium) and Youra Livschitz (Dr. Georges Livschitz ; aka Livchitz) from Brussels were both reported on a list of hostages shot , published in the April 15, 1944 bulletin of News From Belgium : … “A List of Hostages Shot — The names of 15 hostages executed in Brussels after the murder of a German soldier have been published: Victor Jacobs, of Louvain; Michel Stockmans, of Hougaerde; Edmond Vertongen, of Linden; Désiré Regent, of Kessel-Loo; Julien Ameye, of Lans (France); Henri Michaux , of Herseaux; Maurice Knarren, of Brussels; Romain Baplu, of Louvain; Louis Dewolf, of Louvain; Désiré Lasterman, of Wesmael; Pierre Renis and Jean Simon, of Louvain; Léon Magne, of Nivelles; Joseph Nejszaten, of Sciepe; Albert Meurice, of St-Gilles, Brussels… … Eight patriots whose names follow were recently shot down by the Germans in occupied Belgium: Albert Romain, of Bièvres; Henry Albert, of Haut-Fays; and Dr. Georges Livchitz, René Lachaud, René Brams, Richard Lipper, Jean-Auguste Leyniers, and René Joseph Emile Denauw, all of Brussels.” News From Belgium Vol. IV, No. 15, April 15, 1944 | Belgian Information Center, New York (USA) | Harvard Law School Library | Digitized by Google. Film License info : Romain Baplu & Youra Livschitz • News From Belgium | 20230407 | Miracles•Media | TakeNode bb8fc1fd-444f-4bba-aecb-1d439b5bdb3e
From 20 January 2023, the Jewish Museum of Belgium, in partnership with the Auschwitz Foundation, presents the exhibition entitled ‘ 236, Land(es)capes from the 20th Convoy ‘. It is set up in the museum’s project space and offers an artistic look at an exceptional and forgotten event in the Second World War.
The 20th convoy
At 10 p.m. on April 19, 1943, the 20th convoy departed from the Kazerne Dossin transit camp in Mechelen with 1,631 Jewish deportees in cattle cars, heading for Auschwitz. Thanks to resistance actions, both inside the wagons and from outside, 236 of these deportees managed to jump from that train, that was leading them to extermination. An unique event in Europe under the Nazi administration.
Jo Struyven, photographer
The work of the Belgian photographer Jo Struyven (°Sint-Truiden, 1961) takes us back to these acts of resistance – commemorating the 80th anniversary in 2023 – and gives us a glimpse of the landscapes in which this striking story took place. Taking the perspective of those who jumped off that train, an act for which many of them paid with their lives, Struyven creates a contemporary ‘memorial’ with 19 large ‘nocturnal’ black and white images, and one colour print.
Jo Struyven :
The 20th convoy, heading for the unspeakable “Auschwitz”, crossed the area where I grew up, barely 50 meters from my childhood bedroom — I found out 2 years ago after meeting Simon Gronowski. Ever since, I imagine the distress of the deportees. The destination was unknown to them. Some, sensing the worst, tried to escape it. I wanted to give an account of this border between life and death, between resignation and the impossibility of choosing, and the freedom regained with resistance to the oppressor’s plans.
Works presented by Jo Struyven
Land(es)capes from the 20th Convoy, 2020-2022, 19 black and white prints, 1 color print, 90×60 cm (Private collection – Belgium)
Jo Struyven, Land(es)capes from the 20th convoy 2020 2022, black and white print, 90x 60 cm, Wijchmaal (Private Collection, Belgium)Jo Struyven, Land(es)capes from the 20th Convoy 2020-2022, black and white print, 90x 60 cm, Bierbeek (Private Collection, Belgium)Jo Struyven, Land(es)capes from the 20th Convoy, 2020-2022, black and white print, 90x 60 cm, Borgloon (Private Collection, Belgium)Jo Struyven, Land(es)capes from the 20th Convoy, 2020-2022, black and white print, 90x 60 cm, Piringen (Private Collection, Belgium)Jo Struyven, Land(es)capes from the 20th Convoy, 2020-2022, black and white print, 90x 60 cm, Botzelaer (Private Collection, Belgium)
Luc Tuymans, visual artist
In dialogue with Jo Struyven’s photographs, two works by Belgian visual artist Luc Tuymans (°Mortsel, 1958) evoke the destruction of the Jews and Roma of Europe. Die Wiedergutmachung (The Reparation) depicts body parts – left the eyes of gypsy children who had been experimented on by the Nazis. … images that in its incompleteness, reflect the inability to represent facts and memory .
Works presented by Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans, Our New Quarters, 1986, Oil on canvas, 80,5 x 120 cm (MMK – Germany) (Photo Ben Blackwell, courtesy David Zwirner, New York, London)Luc Tuymans, Die Wiedergutmachung, 1989, Oil on cardboard, mounted on plywood, Oil on canvas; diptych, 36,6 x 43 cm, 39,4 x 51,8 cm, courtesy: Private collection (Photo Studio Luc Tuymans)
Art after the Shoah
“Writing a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric”, wrote German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno in 1949. Through two contemporary perspectives from the visual arts, this exhibition seeks to address this question of the (im)possibility of art after the Shoah in a new way.
Testimonies & Catalogue
This exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue book edited by Daniel Weyssow and Jo Struyven and published by the Auschwitz Foundation entitled Land(es)capes from the 20th Convoy (press release on April 19, 2023), as well as an educational space presenting the testimonies from interviews and archives of convoy escapees.
Info+ ( & Français | Nederlands)
236 Land(es)capes from the 20th Convoy Jo Struyven / Luc Tuymans Exhibition at the Jewish Museum of Belgium, in Brussels, Belgium 20 January – 14 August 2023 Brussels Website https://www.mjb-jmb.org
Video report : Vernissage ‘236’ Land(es)capes 20th convoy
Thursday January 19th, 2023, the vernissage of the photo exhibition 236 — Land(es)capes from the 20th Convoy was opened with speeches by Philippe Blondin, President of the Jewish Museum, and by Pierre-Yves Jeholet , Minister-President of the Government of the Federation Wallonia-Brussels. Next, the Belgian photographer Jo Struyven presented his work — escape landscape photographs glowing in the dark — like being lit by moonlight — as well as paintings contributed by Luc Tuymans in the project space. The exhibition runs from January 20 – August 14, 2023 in the Jewish Museum of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium. Video report (20230120) Michel van der Burg | Miracles•Media .
Jan 20, 2023 – VRT | Kristien Bonneure (Belgian Flemish Broadcast) 20 jan 2023
Photographer Jo Struyven presents a preview of his work last night , Thursday January 19th, 2023 at the vernissage of 236 — Land(es)capes from the 20th Convoy , an exhibition of works by Jo Struyven and Luc Tuymans in the Jewish Museum of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium, open from today for the public January 20 – August 14, 2023.
On April 19, 1943, the 20th transport left the Mechelen transit camp to deport 1,631 Jews to Auschwitz. Thanks to resistance actions, both inside and outside the wagons, 236 of these deportees managed to jump from the train that would lead them to destruction.
Photographer Jo Struyven revisits this unique act of resistance in Western Europe during the Nazi regime and shows us the landscapes in which this little-known story took place.
The vernissage was opened by Philippe Blondin, President of the Jewish Museum, and by Pierre-Yves Jeholet , Minister-President of the Government of the Federation Wallonia-Brussels.
Follow-up post tomorrow 20230121.
License info : Vernissage ‘236’ Land(es)capes 20th convoy | 20230120 | Michel van der Burg | Miracles•Media | TakeNode 5e71633a-0ff2-44bf-99dc-34f3db25bb26
Ammerland | 2011 Transport XX ~ Composer Jacob de Haan ~ Performed by Koninklijke Fanfare Albert at the May 2011 commemoration of Transport XX in Boortmeerbeek, Belgium ~ Film : 20210507 | Michel van der Burg | 1-memo•com | Miracles•Media
TAGS #Ammerland #TransportXX #commemoration #1Memo #MiraclesMedia #michelvanderburg #Belgium #Boortmeerbeek #MarcMichiels #holocaust #resistance #deportation #train #attack #escape #Livschitz #Maistriau #Franklemon #music #JacobDeHaan #BrassBand #FanfareAlbert
