Class picture of girls at Tachkemoni school. Item

The only person identified in this photo is the teacher on the right: Sura Breindel Schwarz. Sura Breindel Schwarz (also Schwartz) was born in Rudki, Poland, on 23 February 1910. She became a teacher. In December 1937 Sura obtained a visa for Belgium from the Belgian delegation in Warsaw. She arrived in Antwerp on 27 February 1938 and settled at Korte van Ruusbroecstraat 20. As of October 1938 Sura worked as a teacher at the Tachkemoni Jewish school located at Lange Leemstraat 313 in Antwerp. On 27 June 1939 she married furniture salesman Wolf Ehrenfreund who had been born on 11 October 1905 in Radymno, Poland, and who had migrated to Belgium in 1928. They settled at Lange Kievitstraat 34 in Antwerp, but changed addresses a few times the following year. By January 1940, Sura and her husband lived at Mercatorstraat 74. On 10 May 1940 Nazi-Germany invaded Belgium. Sura, heavily pregnant, and her husband fled to the Belgian coast, where Sura was admitted to the maternity ward in Blankenberge on 14 May. A few days later she gave birth to a son. The Ehrenfreund-Schwartz family returned to Antwerp, but moved to Mechelen in March 1941, settling at Vennekant 25. In July 1941 the family moved to Avenue de la Reine 94 in Schaerbeek, Brussels. Meanwhile they were forced to obey the anti-Jewish decrees installed by the Nazis. Wolf and Sura registered in the municipal Jewish register (although they did not register their daughter born in July 1941), had their IDs stamped with the words Jood-Juif (Jew) and became members of the Association of Jews in Belgium. On 22 July 1942 dozens of Jewish men and women were arrested on trains in Belgium. Wolf Ehrenfreund was among them. Although the Association of Jews in Belgium filed a release request for him – stating that his wife was not in good health – he was sent to Breendonk and then, after the opening of the SS-Sammellager in Mechelen, to the Dossin barracks located there. Wolf was deported from the barracks to Auschwitz-Birkenau via Transport VII on 1st September 1942. The train halted in Kosel and Wolf was taken from the train. He was later on tattooed with the number 177.008. He was put to work in camps surrounding Auschwitz, such as Kleinmangersdorf, Babitz and Trzebinia. Wolf survived the death marches to Blechhammer in January 1945 and was liberated at Buchenwald in April 1945. He was repatriated to Belgium on 14 June 1945, where he found his wife Sura and their children who survived the war in hiding in Brussels.

Jackie Schwarz, niece of Tachkemoni teacher Sura Breindel Schwarz, enherited the photo from her aunt and kindly donated the original item to Kazerne Dossin in 2021.

Jackie Schwarz, 2021