Fischer-Guidalevitch family. Collection

The Kopelman family originally resided in Russia. Marie Kopelman-Hancess had spent time in Belgium before 1940 and she was able to flee from Paris to Switzerland with her husband and daughter in 1941, where they lived out the rest of the war. Marie Kopelman-Hancess passed away in 1999. Marie's aunt, the widowed Perla Kopelman-Guidalevitch, had migrated from Sebastopol, Russia, to Belgium in 1920 together with her children Alexandre and Eleonora. Here, Eleonora married the Belgian-Jewish clerk Willy Fischer. In 1938, their son Philippe André Fischer was born. The complete Guidalevitch family - grandmother Perla Kopelman-Guidalevitch, her son Alexandre Guidalevitch, her daughter Eleonora Guidalevitch-Fischer, her son-in-law Willy Fischer and her grandson Philippe André Fischer - were arrested by the Sicherheitspolizei-Sicherheitsdienst (Sipo-SD) on 16 August 1943 and were taken to the Dossin barracks the following day, where their names were added to the deportation list of transports XXII A (Alexandre Guidalevitch), with foreigners, and XXII B (Eleonora Guidalevitch-Fischer and her family), with Belgian Jews. Since Perla Kopelman-Guidalevitch was older than 60, she was transferred to an elderly home (Altersheim) of the Jewish Council, hospice de Scheut in Anderlecht, Brussels, on 16 September 1943. Born in June 1877 in Kishinev (Russian Empire), she lived there until September 1944 and would become the sole survivor of the family in Belgium. She passed away on 25 July 1970 in Etterbeek (Brussels). Alexandre Guidalevitch, Eleonora Guidalevitch-Fischer, Willy Fischer and Philippe André Fischer were deported via Transport XXII on 20 September 1943. All of them were murdered.

When Marie Kopelman-Hancess fled to Switzerland in 1941, she took the Kopelman family photo albums with her. After her death in 1999, the albums were passed on to her daughter Hélène and later on to Marie's grandson Philip Hesske. Mister Hesske very kindly provided Kazerne Dossin with scans of the pictures from the Kopelman family albums of the Guidalevitch family members. "Stumbling stones" (Stolpersteine) have been laid on 11 October 2019 in Brussels for the members of the Kopelman, Guidalevitch and Fischer families. They are located at : - 40, rue Vilain XIIII, Ixelles (Brussels) : Perla Guidalevitch-Kopelman and Alexandre Guidalevitch (https://stolpersteine-guide.de/map/biografie/3059/guidalevitch-kopelman) - 46, rue du Lac, Ixelles (Brussels) : Eleonore Fischer-Guidalevitch, Willy Fischer and Philippe Fischer (https://stolpersteine-guide.de/map/biografie/2929/fischer-guidalevitch) The Stolpersteine project, initiated by the German artist Gunter Demnig in 1992, aims to commemorate individuals at exactly their last place of residency—or, sometimes, work—which was freely chosen by the person before he or she fell victim to Nazi terror, euthanasia, eugenics, deportation to a concentration or extermination camp, or escaped persecution by emigration or suicide. Around 70,000 Stolpersteine have been laid until today, making the 'Stolpersteine project' the world's largest decentralized memorial.

Philip Hesske, grandson of Marie Kopelman-Hancess