Dreyfuss-Isenberg family. Collection

During the Second World War, the non-Jewish Perck family lived at Driekoningenstraat 65 in Berchem, Antwerp. They befriended the Dreyfuss family, living next door on number 67, which consisted of father Heinrich Dreyfuss, mother Dina Isenberg and daughters Leonie and Lotte (Lottie) Dreyfuss. In January 1941, the Dreyfuss family was advised to leave the very anti-Semitic town of Antwerp and to move to Leuven where they settled at Rijschoolstraat 10. There they lived next door to Jacob Samuel and his wife Paula Behr, who were originally from Mortsel and who were also Jewish. Heinrich Dreyfuss insisted that his family would register in the municipal Jewish register in Leuven, even when a municipal clerk tried to turn him away. During their stay in Leuven, the Dreyfuss family remained in close contact with their former neighbours, the Perck family. The daughters Dreyfuss visited the Percks regularly and even stayed there overnight. The Dreyfuss family received their convocations for forced labour (Arbeitseinsatzbefehl) in the summer of 1942. They voluntarily presented themselves at the Dossin barracks on 1st August 1942. On 4 August, Heinrich Dreyfuss and his wife Dina Isenberg were deported via transport I. Both of them perished. Their daughters Leonie and Lotte were initially members of the kitchen staff at the Dossin barracks, but Leonie's name was then added to the deportation list of transport II. She was deported a week after her parents. No further information regarding the fate of Lotte Dreyfuss is available. It is presumed that she joined her sister Leonie on transport II. Both girls presumably perished. Their Jewish neighbours, the Samuel family, as well as their friends, the Perck family, survived the war. A sister of Misses Jeanne Perck-Van Lent, Misses Yvonne Veys, hid members of the Jewish Glasmakers family at her home at De Leescorfstraat in Borgerhout, Antwerp. The Perck family received letters from members of the Glasmakers family abroad, which were then delivered to the Veys family.

The Perck family received these letters after their former Jewish neighbours, the Dreyfuss family, had moved to Leuven. Two documents date from the period that the Dreyfuss family was detained at the Dossin barracks. After the death of Joseph Perck, father of the donor and childhood friend of the Dreyfuss sisters, in 2013, his daughter Hanni Perck collected the letters. She kindly donated them to Kazerne Dossin in 2016 and added items in 2021 (two cards with winter drawings, Yvonne Veys' prayer card, the letter dated 18 May 1941 and all photos).

Hanni Perck, granddaughter of the Perck family