Gantman-Fischer family. Collection

Joseph Mendel alias Jos Gantman was born in Odessa, Russia, on 28 June 1919 as the oldest son of Lev alias Leo Gantman (born on 28 September 1888 in Novo-Thartoria, Russia) and Menika Grois (born on 5 December 1897 in Winitza, Russia, today Vinnytsia in Ukraine). The Gantman family was very religious. During the First World War father Lev had been a Kapellmeister in the Soviet army. Afterwards he became a famous composer of Jewish religious music and accepted a job as the orchestra leader of the Odessa opera house. A second son was born in the family on 5 June 1923. The baby was named Benjamin. In 1928, Lev Gantman was invited by the Machsike Hadass to become the choir leader at their synagogue in the Oostenstraat in Antwerp, frequented by members of the Russian-Polish Jewish community. The family emigrated to Belgium that same year and on 22 September 1930 a daughter named Ida was born in Antwerp. As of November 1939, the Gantman family resided at Lange Kievitstraat 111, where they still lived when Nazi-Germany invaded Belgium in May 1940. That same year, Jos Gantman enlisted as a student at the faculty of medicine at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Free University of Brussels). When the university shut its doors on 25 November 1941, Jos could no longer pursue his career. On 2 March 1942, Jos Mendel Gantman, his father Lev and his brother Benjamin were arrested as Soviet citizens and thus enemies of Nazi-Germany who could be traded against German POWs. Jos, Lev and Benjamin were interned at the prison at the Begijnenstraat in Antwerp, before being deported as forced labourers to the Wülzburg concentration camp on 16 May 1942, where they worked in an arms factory. The men were liberated there on 26 April 1945 and were repatriated to Belgium on 20 May 1945. Mother Menika Grois had been arrested on 28 March 1944 as a Soviet citizen. She too had been interned at the prison at the Begijnenstraat in Antwerp, but she was subsequently transferred to the Dossin barracks. Menika was deported to the Vittel internment centre in France on 18 May 1944. She survived deportation and was repatriated in 1945. Post-war Joseph Mendel Gantman married Esther Fischer. Esther was born in Antwerp on 3 March 1928 as the daughter of Adolf Fischer (born on 21 October 1900 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia) and Irene Fischer (born on 8 July 1896 in Antwerp, Belgium). She had an older sister named Julia alias Juliette, who had been born in Antwerp on 4 September 1923. The Fischer family was strictly religious. Father Adolphe had emigrated from Czechoslovakia to Belgium in November 1922 to marry Irene after which he had become a well-known diamond trader in Antwerp. In May 1940, the Fischers fled to Toulouse, France, but they soon returned to Antwerp. As of 1942, youngest daughter Esther was hidden by Jules and Denise Dehut-Gossart in Wasmes where she took on the name Yvonne Marie Delcourt and pretended to be an orphan whose parents were killed in the bombardments. Father Adolphe Fischer was arrested at home during the second large anti-Jewish raid in Antwerp. His wife Irene Fischer was very ill at the time and was hospitalised. She would pass away in Borgerhout, Antwerp, on 2 November 1942. Adolphe did not survive deportation from the Dossin barracks to Auschwitz-Birkenau via Transport VII on 1st September 1942. Oldest sister Julia survives the war in hiding in Brussels, protected by her natural blond hair colour. Jos Gantman and Esther Fischer would have two children. André Gantman, born in 1950, became a lawyer and a politician. He was involved in the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance and is a board member of its successor Kazerne Dossin.

In 2012 André Gantman, son of Joseph Mendel alias Jos Gantman and Esther Fischer, donated copies of his family collection to Kazerne Dossin.

André Gantman, son of Joseph Mendel alias Jos Gantman and Esther Fischer, 2012