Kagan-Sztern family. Collection

Zalman Kagan was born in 1916 in Dukszty, Lithuania, as the son of Leib Kagan (b. 28/01/1888 in Dukszty, Lithuania) and Brajna Lewin (b. 1894 in Roubin, Lithuania). After Leib Kagan emigrated to Belgium in 1927, his wife, sons Zalman and Hirsz, and daughter Ida joined him in October 1932. The family settled in Brussels and oldest son Zalman Kagan became a tailor. On 9 February 1938, he married Tauba (Thérèse) Sztern (b. 09/01/1919 in Lututów, Poland. Their daughter Fanny Kagan was born in Forest, Brussels, on 26 August 1938. Tauba gave birth to their son Alain on 8 October 1939. The Kagan-Sztern family still lived in Brussels when Nazi-Germany occupied Belgium in May 1940. In 1942, Tauba Sztern placed her children Fanny and Alain Kagan in hiding with the Daudelet family. The siblings were then transferred to the De Winter family in Tremelo, Belgium. Fanny, Alain and their mother Tauba survived the war in hiding. Zalman Kagan was arrested in Brussels on 6 October 1942 and was transferred to the Dossin barracks the following day. He was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau via Transport XIII on 10 October 1942 and was hurdled out of the convoy in Kosel, not far from Auschwitz main camp. Zalman Kagan survived multiple labour camps including Gogolin, Mechtal, Raupenau-Kotzenau, Sagan and Kitlitzstreben, and the death marches to Flossenburg in 1945. He was liberated in April 1945 by the American Army and was repatriated to Belgium in June 1945, where he was reunited with his wife and children. In November 1947, Zalman Kagan and Tauba Sztern divorced. Zalman Kagan remarried Berthe Bandelin on 20 January 1951. Tauba met a British pilot and also remarried. She and her children, Fanny and Alain Kagan, emigrated to London, United Kingdom, with her second husband.

In 2008, after reading about the activities of the Buyse commission, the De Winter family contacted the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance, predecessor of Kazerne Dossin. They kindly donated digitised copies of photos depicting the members of the Kagan-Sztern family hidden by the De Winters during the Holocaust.

De Winter family, 2008