Aaron Joseph Luks. Collection

Aaron Joseph alias Jos Luks was born on 26 September 1921 in Antwerp, Belgium, as the son of Juda alias Isidore Luks (born on 18 May 1888 in Krynica, Poland) and Tauba alias Tonia Wellner (born on 28 January 1889 in Podgorze, Poland). Jos had two younger brothers, both born in Antwerp: Michel Henri, on 27 December 1922, and Marcel Salomon, on 27 October 1927. Jos’ family was well-to-do. His father had arrived in Belgium in 1906 and became a well-established diamond dealer. The family obtained Belgian citizenship before the Second World War. In 1929, Jos’ father Juda had a family home built at Arthur Goemaerelei 38 in Antwerp, where they still resided when Nazi-Germany invaded Belgium on 10 May 1940. Jos, his parents and brothers were then forced to obey the anti-Jewish decrees installed by the Nazis. The family registered in the municipal Jewish register at the end of 1940 and became members of the Association of Jews in Belgium in March 1942. As of June 1942 they wore the yellow star of David. Around the same time, the deportation of able-bodied Jewish men from Belgium to labour camps in Northern France began. Jos and his younger brother Michel Henri then fled to Switzerland. On 20 July 1942 they were registered as refugees in the Suisse municipality La Chaux-de-Fonds. From Switzerland, Jos tried to obtain information about his parents and youngest brother in Antwerp. Via a neighbor, he learned about their ‘sudden departure’. Jos’ father Juda, mother Tauba and youngest brother Marcel Salomon were arrested and were brought to the Dossin barracks on 30 October 1942. All were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau via transport XVII on 31 October 1942 and were murdered. Jos and Michel survived the war in a work camp in Les Verrières, Switzerland, where, in November 1944, they learned via the Belgian Red Cross about the arrest of their family by the collaborating Zwarte Brigade [Black Brigade] and about their deportation.

On 17 December 1996, Jos Luks kindly permitted the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance, predecessor of Kazerne Dossin, to digitise the postcard in this collection (A000940). He also donated the original Red Cross letter (A000939) to the museum.

Aaron Joseph alias Jos Luks, 1996