In my last story, about Mother’s Day, I told the story of a particularly strong woman and mother, my great-grandmother Maria Maes. This is the story about her son, Leon.
Only a few months before she died, I had the opportunity to ask my grandmother (Leon’s younger sister), about her experience during World War II. It is amazing, the stories she told me. And amazing, how that ‘greatest generation’ thinks of that time with such ‘desinterest’: “it was normal, we only did our duty…”, if they speak about it, at all. I heard stories and details that even my mother had never heard! Maybe my grandma felt her end come, and wanted to share what she could.
So my great-uncle Albert never had to go to Germany for forced labor, as the previous story explained, through a lucky mishap when he was born. But Leon, his younger brother, even though he tried to hide for a while, had to give in and do his time in Germany.
He was first sent to Krakow, but was then transferred to Zittau, the current Czech Republic. Leon never spoke about this, ever, but my grandmother remembers the stories his comrades told, those who worked with him. She can’t remember the name of the factory, or what they made, but that area had important Messerschmitt aviation factories, among other textile and chemical plants.
A contingent of Jewish prisoners, detached from the Gross-Rosen concentration camp (the camp where, among others, Simon Wiesenthal and Rabbi Shlomo Zev Zweigenhaft were imprisoned), were held there as well for forced labor. Based on details in the different stories I heard, I assume Leon worked for the Vereinigte Textilwerke K. H. Barthel & Co, a Vienna based company, that had a branch factory in Zittau (Žitava), right at the Czech border. Which makes sense, as he had good experience in the textile industry, as his hometown of Sint-Niklaas, Belgium, had several textile factories, where he had worked before the war had started.
It originally was the H. Klinger factory, that made an exceptionally wide range of products, from technical fabrics, ready-made products and water-proof canvases, through rubber-coated hoses, impregnated fabrics, work clothes to train curtains and tea towels. Production for the army was also significant.
One of the things made there, was this Mountain Trooper (Gebirgsjäger) Winter Camouflage Anorak, reversible to white (Windbluse der Gebirgstruppen). “K.H. Bartel & Co. Zwittau 1942” marked.
After the annexation of Austria, the Barthel company took over the Jewish owned Klinger factories (in other words, aryanized the company). What made the Barthel company different, is that it attempted to ‘Aryanize’ her factories and her workers. So the Jewish girls from the Gross-Rosen subcamp in Zittau that worked for Barthel had to undergo frequent sessions to ‘unjew’ them, and ‘aryanize’ them instead.
Enter my great-uncle Leon. He was a strong character, as well, as attested by his silence and the impressed stories his friends told after the war. One such story is that he saw a supervisor hit a Jewish girl. Immediately Leon lept into action, rushed into the man, and with his hands around the supervisor’s neck pressed him against the wall. They need 3-4 other men to pull Leon off that supervisor. His grip on that man’s throat was so strong, he had trouble speaking for 2 weeks after.
For some reason, he was not sanctioned for that event, but gained status and respect. (Or his friends were never privy to the sanctions Leon did undergo, as Leon himself simply never told anyone). Several of the supervisors and those with connections would warn Leon if an inspection or something was to happen, or when to lay low.
When a fire broke out, he was supposed to help as firefighter. But he would take his sweet time, and be ready when everything was basically over and under control. When brought in for questioning about why he did not immediately show up to help, he pointed at the long list of clothing and gear he had to put on: “I can’t break the regulations, and show up lacking equipment, can I?” The German leadership, being German and such sticklers when it came to rules and regulations, had to respect that excuse…
Or at some point, they came to gather the Jewish girls for a mandatory viewing of another propaganda film to ‘aryanize’ them. He told the guard that they were behind work, and had to stay and finish. Whenever he was there, those girls didn’t go to those propaganda sessions.
Stealing coal for heating and smuggling to those who needed it was also something he did. But the Germans got wind that company coal was being stolen, so they put white chalk on the coal heap after hours. This way, when unauthorized ‘withdrawal’ of coal happened, it would show up as a black spot in the white cover on top of the heap of coals.
But Leon found the bucket with chalk, so they stole the coal anyway, and then covered up the black mark left by the ‘confiscated coal’ with new chalk, as if nothing was taken away.
The wearing of boy scout uniforms was also forbidden, because that was “English”. But Leon, and one of his friends, put on their uniform anyway, in the middle of Germany, and stood on the corner of the street with it. I suppose no one there in Germany recognized the Belgian scout uniform, so he got away with that. But he was consistent in his rebellion and resistance.
This is the type of things his friends were telling, impressed by his daring and leadership.
One last story line, something my grandparents told with a certain emotion, still, after all those years. After the war, many ‘collaborators’ were imprisoned, often in blind hatred and anger, at times based on local feuds, etc. My grandfather told the story about how an uncle in the family was captured after the war. Uncle Michel.
He was very laid-back during the war, not interested in picking sides, just surviving. His brother, however, was actively engaged in things (what exactly, we were never told), and when the mob came to find his brother, didn’t find him, they simply took Michel instead. He spent several weeks in prison, under very poor conditions.
My grandmother told how their family doctor, Doctor Vennens, had helped many people escape from forced labor in Germany. People had to undergo a physical check, which he did, and he rejected many fit and able people on pretenses, to keep them home.
This one other person, my grandfather did not tell his name, as he knew him too well, was a patient of Dr. Vennens, and had TB. The Doc would give him free medicine during the war, as he helped many people. After the liberation, people ransacked his house and practice, based solely on his conservative Flemish politics. Right-wing, but not pro-Nazi. One of the biggest accusers was that TB patient… He was a member of the Socialist Party, and one of those last minute ‘resistance fighters’, who joined only the moment the danger was gone, right before the British and Polish tanks rolled into town.
When all that dust settled, the Doc was able to put his practice together again. Interestingly, my grandfather was able to add this story: When he reopened, the doctor went into his waiting room, and asked:
“Who here is a member of Bond Moyson?” (the health care insurance and services organization run by the Socialists). To everyone who put up their hand, he said: “Out! All socialists, OUT!”
That was the worst group in that immediate post-war period, both my grandparents agreed. All they wanted was to destroy and hit and hurt and burn. “Just like today”, my grandma remarked. If she only knew just what Antifa & Co have been doing here only a few summers ago, she’d recognize the same blind violence and hatred.
His father was a bicycle repair man, so during the war they often had German soldiers in their shop to have their bikes repaired. At the end of the war, their neighbors had planned to paint swastika’s on their house and shop, but my grandfather and his father found out just in time, and were able to prevent that. When emotions later calmed, they suffered no further repercussions.
It sounds crazy, but people back then could get a certificate from the town hall, that stated that they had been good and upstanding citizens during the war. It was called a ‘Getuigschrift van burgertrouw’, a certificate of civilian loyalty.
A very different time.
I am honored to have someone like my grand-uncle Leon in my family.
(Uncle Leon, years after the war, shortly before he died)
It is his example that spurs me on to call out injustice where I see it, to stand up for what is right. Even when the whole apparatus seems against you, and the situation hopeless.
As a fellow Boy Scout, I understand what he showed: a good deed is a good deed. It doesn’t need to end the war, and it doesn’t need comfort and safety, in order to be done, anyway.
Do the next right thing, right in front of you. Whenever you can. My great-uncle Leon did, in a very dark time in our history, live up to what Tolkien so masterfully captured in the words of Gandalf, talking to Bilbo:
That message, and Leon’s example, ring true today, as well.
All is well.
So true! One never knows what that kindness does when it ripples out & creates a RED wave (or any wave really).
I always felt like God was giving us a little nudge... it was still our choice to take it of course. But I imagine Him nodding His head, smiling in approval when someone did something for no obvious reciprocal purpose.
Thank you for sharing!
The night Martin Luther King Jr was murdered I decided to do what I could to honor his sacrifice. We moved to an inner city neighborhood where some years my kids were the only white kids in their classes. Now fifty years later we have more white neighbors along with our Black & Asian neighbors. We are all thankful for each other.
Life is good!