Commemorative medal awarded to Fernande De Smet. Collection

Fernande Marie Louise De Smet was born in Geraardsbergen, Belgium, on 8 July 1899 as the daughter of cigar manufacturer Aimé De Smet and his wife Hélène Dhont. Fernande was a devout catholic. She never married and didn’t have children. In 1938 she co-founded an orphanage for girls, the ‘Instituut Zoete Troost der Bedrukten’ [Sweet Consolation for the Deprived], which was located at Voldersstraat in Onkerzele near Geraardsbergen. The institution, of which Fernande became the director, consisted of a nursery, a primary school and a boarding house for girls placed there (mainly) by court order. In 1943 Fernande De Smet was contacted by Victor Pion, a merchant from Geraardsbergen, who was a business associate of Ajzyk Szmulewicz, a Jewish raincoat distributor from Brussels. Upon Victor’s request Fernande agreed to hide Ajzyk’s daughter Lea Szmulewicz at her orphanage, among the 60 non-Jewish children who were housed there. Ajzyk also convinced Fernande to take in his niece Nadia Goldberg and four Jewish boys, some of them related to Ajzyk, even though the orphanage only took in girls. In order to protect them, all six children were baptized on 15 July 1943 and received false names. Isidore Eisentorg (also Eisenstorg) became Marcel Torck, Jimmy Eisentorg (also Eisenstorg) became Jean-Marie Torck, Georges Nathan Gliksman became Georges Petit, Manfred Neublum became Frans Vincke, Lea Szmulewicz became Lea Marchand and Nadia Goldberg became Maria Van Den Bergen. The six children remained at the orphanage run by Fernande De Smet for various periods between July 1943 and the beginning of 1944. In order to provide for her Jewish wards who could not benefit from the subsidiaries awarded to the orphanage by the Belgian state which had placed most of the non-Jewish girls there, Fernande De Smet organized private fundraisers and by visited nearby farms to find extra food. At the beginning of 1944 Fernande convinced her sister Marthe De Smet, director of the ‘Moeder van Barmhartigheid’ orphanage [Mother of Mercy institution] in Sint-Amandsberg near Gent, to take in the four boys, while Fernande found a place for the two girls with families in the surroundings of Onkerzele. All six of Fernande’s Jewish protégés survived the war. Fernande remained the director of the orphanage until 1974. In 1980 she received an honorary commemorative medal for distinctive services to the Jewish people of Belgium and in June 2001 she was recognized as Righteous amongst the Nations by Yad Vashem. Fernande De Smet passed away a few weeks later, on 8 August 2001, at the age of 102.

This commemorative medal was awarded to Fernande De Smet during a ceremony organised by the Comité Hommage aux sauveurs - Comité Huldebetoon aan de redders, at Forest National stadium in Brussels on 12 October 1980 under patronage of his Majesty King Baudouin and of the Consistoire Central Israélite de Belgique – Centraal Israëlitisch Consistorie van België. Over 2 000 Belgians who had helped rescue Jewish men, women and children during the Holocaust were honoured during this event. Fernande passed the medal that was awarded to her on to Catharina Deckx, one of children nursed at the 'Instituut Troost der Bedrukten', the orphanage in Onkerzele run by Fernande De Smet. On 18 October 2023 Catharina kindly donated the medal to Kazerne Dossin, with the assistance of her relative Guy De Mol.

Catharina Deckx and Guy De Mol