Henri Oerlemans. Collection

Henri Oerlemans was born on 11 December 1930. The war made a big impression on the teenage years of Henri. His father was a victim of the bombings on Antwerp in Belgium in 1944, as a V2-bomb fell close to his house once. Without his father, fourteen year old Henri lived only with his younger sister, brother and very pregnant mother. He started working as an apprentice-painter of advertisements at Studio Marcel which painted advertising boards for the then many movie theaters in Antwerp. Due to family circumstances, the childhood years of Henri Oerlemans were mainly spent in Jewish circles. He was sometimes "shabbesgoy" (the Gentile who turns lights on or off during Shabbat, for example). Because he and his family lived in the Jewish quarter, Rik saw scenes that no child his age should have seen. He saw, for example, one German officer shoot a Jewish man at close range. For a long time he was afraid that they would come and get him or, worse, perhaps even kill him, because - in his eyes - he was witnessing a murder. This however did not occur, because to the Nazis this was a normal thing. Systematically, he saw all his young friends disappear with their families until his neighbourhood was almost completely uninhabited. The upstairs neighbours of Henri on Marinisstraat 12 were Szymon (Simon) Honigwachs, Anna Berwald and their two sons, Philippe Henri (born on 14 November 1921) and Sylvain (born on 6 July 1930). Sylvain was the same age as Henri and they played a lot together. The Honigwachs family was arrested in their own home during the first razzia in Antwerp. The occupying forces organised this raid in cooperation with the Antwerp police on the night of 15-16 August 1942. After their arrival at the SS-Sammellager Mecheln, the Dossin barracks, the family was registered. Father Szymon was assigned serial number 921 on the transport list of Transport IV, Anna was assigned number 922, Sylvain 923 and Philippe 924. Transport IV left Mechelen on 18 August 1942 and arrived in Auschwitz on 20 August. We do not know what happened to the family after its arrival at the camp. Given Sylvain's young age and Simon and Anna's older age, it is likely that they were all gassed immediately upon arrival. Philippe - according to Nazi views - did have a working age, but it’s only known he did not survive deportation. In the house opposite Henri, there lived Mala Zimetbaum. She was arrested at Antwerp station while commuting from Brussels to Antwerp on 22 July 1942. Still on that same day, her family left Antwerp and moved to Brussels. On that day, more than 160 Jews were arrested at the Antwerp station and transferred to the Breendonk prison. Mala spent five days in Breendonk before she was transferred to the Dossin Barracks, which opened on that day. Along with other women rounded up during this raid, she is enlisted in the administration of the assembly camp. On 14 September 1942, they register Mala Zimetbaum, 24 years young, on the list of Transport X. She is deported the next day. The camp SS choose Mala Zimetbaum, registered as No 19 880, to work as a translator and courier between the Auschwitz men's camp and the women's camp at Birkenau. Mala used her privileged position to help countless fellow prisoners and was able to save multiples from a short journey to the gas chambers. Despite the great risks she faced, she passed on food and messages to fellow prisoners. Mala fell in love with a Polish political prisoner, Edward Galiński, also called Edek. Edek and Mala escaped from the camp on 24 June 1944, but were arrested at Bielitz, near the Czechoslovakian border, on 6 July. They were taken back to Auschwitz the next day, imprisoned in Block 11. They were interrogated and tortured for a long time before being hanged. Their execution took place on 15 September 1944 at the Birkenau roll call yard, in front of the prisoners. Their execution served as a deterrent. After the war, Henri went to a drawing school in Berchem, did his military service, and met the woman that he would marry and have two children with. After a long delay, he went to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp (drawing, painting and sculpture). After graduating from the Higher Institute, he exchanged his day job for a teaching position at the Academies of Fine Arts in Mechelen and Kontich, where he later became director. Henri still had good relations with many Jewish people because he did chores during the Sabbath that they were not allowed to do due to their religious rules. Henri Oerlemans died on 11 July 2020.

When the atrocities of the first raid in Antwerp were over there was nothing left inside the many flats in Henri's street. He visited his upstairs neighbour's house and found a box of gouache paint containers and paint brush, a photo album and a sticker book by his deported playmate Sylvain Honigwachs. After the third raid Henri visited the empty house across the street where Mala Zimetbaum had lived. There Henri found a chessboard, which belonged to the young woman. He took the chessboard and chess pieces with him and kept it for decades. In 1995 Henri Oerlemans made two sculptures portraying his Jewish friends Sylvain and Myriam. In June 2013, Henri Oerlemans kindly donated to Kazerne Dossin the items from Sylvain Honigwachs and Mala Zimetbaum. On 7 February 2022 Maria Foncke, widow of Henri Oerlemans, kindly donated the sculptures of Sylvain and Myriam, which Henri Oerlemans created, to Kazerne Dossin.

Henri Oerlemans and Maria Foncke, widow of Henri Oerlemans, in 2013 and (delivered by their two children) in 2022.