Roger Pauwels. Collection

Roger René François Pauwels was born in Brussels on 15 March 1924 as the youngest child of Charles Pauwels and Elise Vyvey. Roger had three older siblings: Jean (born in 1917), Alexandre (born in 1920) and Mariette (born in 1922). Roger became an office clerk and lived with his family at Rue Terre Neuve 181 in Brussels. In May 1944 the Sotramont company, specialising in assembly work, published a call to draft workers for projects abroad. Roger Pauwels presumably volunteered and left Belgium on 1st or 2nd August 1944. He arrived in Auschwitz on 4 August 1944 and was added to an international group of volunteers, working as a locksmith. The group lived at Lager II Buchenwald which consisted of barracks for the workers employed by subcontractors or supply companies of IG Farben. Roger Pauwels was not repatriated to Belgium so his parents started looking for him. The Belgian court in 1945 published an administrative death certificate stating that Roger Pauwels had died in Auschwitz on 26 December 1944. His parents received a deportation commemoration medal.

In 2019 Jeannine Rocour kindly donated the original items to Kazerne Dossin. She had received them from her sister Irène Rocour, widow of Alexandre Pauwels, brother of Roger Pauwels.

Jeannine Rocour, 2019