Regina Beer. Collection

Regine alias Regina Beer was born on 5 November 1920 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. During the First World War her parents, the Belgian Jewish couple Henri Beer and Clara Josephine Pinkhof, had fled to the Dutch capital with their daughter Clarisse and son Sally Maurice. When Regine was 11 months old, the Beer family returned to Antwerp. There they experienced the beginning of the occupation in May 1940. On 24 June that year Regine suffered another blow: her beloved father, Henri Beer, died after a failed operation. In 1940-1941 Regine was still studying. She wanted to become a teacher. Following the advice of her headmaster, she registered in the Antwerp Jewish register. Regine held Belgian nationality and thus was protected from arrest until September 1943, but in the night of 3 to 4 September 1943 the Nazis arrested hundreds of Belgian Jewish men, women and children during Aktion Iltis. Regine was dragged from her bed at home a little after midnight and was taken away. Regine’s mother, who had been able to prove that she was not Jewish, and Regine’s sister and brother, who were both married to non-Jewish Belgians, were left alone. On 4 September 1943, Regine was transferred to the Dossin Barracks in Mechelen. As the daughter of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother, she was assigned to the E group (Entscheidung). The Nazis had yet to decide on her fate. In early April 1944, Regine's name was added to the deportation list. Transport XXV took her to Auschwitz-Birkenau on 19 May. Upon arrival, Regine was selected as a forced labourer. The number A5148 was tattooed on her arm. Regine survived the hardships in Birkenau. Thanks to the help of Mala Zimetbaum, an Antwerp Jewish resistance fighter, she was able to find work in the Union arms factory. On 18 January 1945, Birkenau was "evacuated" by the Nazis. Thousands of prisoners left on a death march. Those who could not follow were murdered by the guards at the side of the road. Regine also survived this ordeal. After seven days and nights without food or water the survivors arrived in Ravensbrück. From there the journey continued to Malchow. On 3 May 1945, Regine Beer and her fellow prisoners were liberated by Allied troops. Regine recovered slowly from her physical and psychological injuries after her repatriation at the end of May 1945, and served as an interpreter in a British/Belgian Denazification camp in Recklinghausen. She later on continued teaching. Regine was also married twice, to Gaston Morantin and to Jozef Blommaert, and became a mother, a grandmother and a great-grandmother. From the 1970s onwards, as a survivor and convinced anti-fascist, she testified in hundreds, if not thousands, of schools, at cultural associations and before human rights organisations about what she had experienced during the Holocaust. Regine had a boundless commitment to remembrance education and projects, and, together with Paul De Keulenaer, published her biography in 1992: Regine Beer. KZ A5148. In 2006 followed Regine Beer. Mijn leven als KZ A5148. Regine also contributed to the documentary series De Laatste Getuigen by Luckas Vander Taelen. She was honoured for her efforts several times, and received, among other awards, the Democracy Prize (1995). In 2006 she received the title of Commander in the Order of the Crown. On 23 March 2014, the day of her passing, Regine Beer was supposed to receive the lifetime achievement award from the women's movement Zij-kant.

After her death in 2014 Regine Beer's family and the Friends of Regine Beer Association collected her personal documents, her documentation concerning her post-war educational activities in schools and a folder with documents regarding her work for the denazification team in Internment camp 4 in Recklinghausen, and transferred the originals to Kazerne Dossin. A detailed inventory of the collection was created in 2022. The collection has not yet been digitised and is therefore only accessible at the Kazerne Dossin reading room.

Morantin-Blommaert-Beer family and Guido Totté, president of the Friends of Regine Beer Association, 2014