Jules Fleischer. Collection

Jules alias Gyula Fleischer was born in Abaujszanto, Hungary, on 12 April 1912 as the son of Aladar Fleischer and Lenca König. On 5 June 1929, a few weeks after his seventeenth birthday, Jules travelled from Hungary to Belgium on a tourist visa, leaving behind his parents and three brothers in his hometown. All would perish during the Holocaust. Upon arrival in Antwerp Jules declared to the Belgian immigration authorities that he was an errand boy by profession. Soon after his arrival, however, he found a job as a diamond cutter working in the workshops of different employers such as Ernst Katz, Victor Frenkel and the Borgenicht family. By the end of the 1930s, however, Jules worked independently as a diamond trader. During his first years in Belgium he changed addresses quite frequently, but he always stayed within the Antwerp region. Shortly after his arrival, he also filed a request to obtain a permanent residence permit, which was granted to him in May 1930. In Belgium Jules met Lenca David. Lenca had been born in Bixad, Romania, on 10 December 1907 as the daughter of Maurits David and Serina Neuwitz. Her father Maurits served as a soldier during the First World War and fell in battle in 1915. Lenca had immigrated to Belgium in October 1928 after which she worked in Antwerp as a servant. She had been married to factory worker Leib Reiss (born in Szczerzec, then Poland, today Shchyrets, Ukraine, on 16 November 1909) before the match with Jules was made. Together, Jules and Lenca raised a son named Jozef who had been born in Antwerp on 30 January 1934. The couple would officially marry on 23 November 1940 at the Antwerp municipality. When Nazi-Germany invaded Belgium on 10 May 1940, Jules, Lenca and their son Jozef lived at Jacob Jacobsstraat 17 in Antwerp. As of the end of 1940 they were forced to obey the increasing number of anti-Jewish decrees. They registered in the municipal Jewish register on 12 December 1940 and became members of the Association of Jews in Belgium on 9 March 1942. Both Jules and Lenca had their ID cards stamped with the words “Jood-Juif” in Summer 1941 and the family obtained the yellow star of David in early June 1942. In September 1942 Jules was claimed by Organisation Todt to be put to work as a forced labourer on construction sites of the Atlantic Wall in Northern France. He was transported there on 12 September 1942, and was held at the Dannes and Condette labour camps in the French coastal region. On 31 October 1942 Jules and most of the other Jewish workers from Belgium were deported via Mechelen to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Jules carried number 261 on transport XVI. Upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau on 3 November 1942, Jules was selected as a forced labourer. The number 72421 was tattooed on his arm. Jules survived slave labour in Auschwitz and was transferred to Mauthausen in August 1943. He returned to Auschwitz after a few weeks and was sent on a death march to the Mauthausen Kommando Quarz (Melk) at the end of January 1945. Jules was liberated in Dachau by the American army on 29 April 1945 and was repatriated to Belgium on 26 May 1945. In Antwerp he was reunited with his wife Lenca and their son Jozef who had survived the war in hiding. Upon repatriation Jules and his family settled at Jacob Jacobsstraat 59 in Antwerp, where they befriended their upstairs neighbors: Joannes and Sophie Verbist-Boekman. Sophie came from a Jewish family, but was secular. She spoke Yiddish and worked in the diamond industry as did Jules Fleischer. Jules started a jewelry business and picked up his activities as a diamond dealer. He obtained Belgian nationality and he and his wife Lenca continued to visit the Verbist-Boekman family after the Verbist-Boekman family moved from Antwerp to Borsbeek. Jules Fleischer passed away around 1977.

The items in this collection were found by the children of Joannes and Sophie Verbist-Boekman, Dotty and Rik Verbist, in the attic of their parents’ house at De Villegasplein 1 in Borsbeek after the passing of Joannes Verbist, a Righteous amongst the Nations, in 2022. Joannes was a friend of Holocaust survivor Jules Fleischer and stored the items at his home after Jules’ passing. Rik and Dotty Verbist kindly donated the original items to Kazerne Dossin on 30 May 2023.

Rik Verbist, son of Joannes Verbist, 2023