Isy Angel. Collection

Born in 1912 in Saloniki (now Thessaloniki, Greece), Isy (Isaac) Angel came to Belgium in December 1930 in search of a better life as a hat salesman. During the war years, he managed to stay out of the hands of the occupiers for a long time, but in July 1944, Isy and his tailor wife Mazaltov (Marguerite) Hassid, born in Saloniki in 1921, were arrested in Brussels and taken to the Dossin Barracks and registered on the deportation list as numbers. With the last transport from Mechelen, Transport XXVI, they were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where Isy was registered as number B3452 and selected for forced labour. In January 1945, the SS started the evacuation of the Auschwitz camps, after which Isy survived the heavy death marches, first to Buchenwald and then to Gross-Rosen. He was finally liberated on 30 April 1945 in Stuttgart by French forces. During his repatriation, an unknown woman gifted him 200 French Francs and took a photo of Isy in his camp uniform. It took until 8 May before Isy was finally back in Brussels, but it was not until 11 June that he was reunited with his wife who also survived, and together they could finally share the relief of the end of the war. Isy was one of the lucky ones who, as a Jewish deportee, still managed to survive the war. Isy Angel died on 12 January 1992.

Mazaltov Hassid and Isy Angel kept these items safe during their postwar life. After the dead of Isy Angel, Mazaltov Hassid kindly permitted the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance, predecessor of Kazerne Dossin, to digitise and archive one camp uniform and to digitise one photo in this collection.

Mazaltow Hassid (1995, 1997)