Nathan Goldman and Jenta Niechcicki. Collection

Jenta Niechcicki was born on 10 July 1915 in Piotrkow, Poland, as the daughter of Abram Niechicki (also Niecheicki, born on 26 March 1892 in Piotrkow, Poland) and Fajga Marie Fuks (born on 17 October 1897 in Piotrkow, Poland). She was the oldest of five daughters. The Niechcicki family emigrated to Belgium in 1926. Jenta became a hairdresser and in 1935 she married glove maker Szmul Goldman (born on 7 May 1914 in Otwock, Poland). The couple settled in Brussels, but the marriage was unhappy. Jenta and Szmul officially divorced a few months after the arrival of their son Nathan, who was born on 15 May 1937 in Ixelles, Brussels. The baby boy remained with his mother who moved in with her parents and siblings living at Rue Haute in Brussels when Nazi Germany invaded Belgium in May 1940. In July 1942, Jenta Niechcicki received a convocation for forced labour (Arbeitseinsatzbefehl) and on 1st August 1942 she presented herself at the Dossin barracks, convinced that she would be released as the mother of a young child. However, attempts made to free her because of Nathan’s young age were unsuccessful. While interned at the barracks, Jenta wrote several postcards to her son Nathan, whom she had left in Brussels, in the care of his maternal grandparents Abram and Fajga Marie Niechcicki-Fuks. Nathan was allowed to visit his mother at the barracks and spent a day with her before she was deported. Jenta Niechcicki did not survive deportation from the Dossin barracks to Auschwitz-Birkenau via Transport II on 11 August 1942. With help of the Jewish Defence Committee (JDC or Comité de Défense des Juifs), his grandparents hid Nathan Goldman at the school of the Sisters of Mercy in Heverlee, Leuven. Nathan Goldman, his grandparents and his aunts survived the war. Nathan’s father Szmul Goldman was deported from the Dossin barracks via transport XX to Auschwitz-Birkenau on 19 April 1943, but he survived and was repatriated in 1945. After the war, Nathan Goldman emigrated to Israel. He is married and has children and grandchildren.

Nathan Goldman permitted Kazerne Dossin to digitise the postcards and photos from his family collection in 2010. In 2017, he also granted an interview at Kazerne Dossin which was recorded by staff members of “Cultural Heritage Annuntiaten Heverlee”, the school where Nathan was hidden during the war.

Nathan Goldman, 2010 and 2017