In the town of Axel in Brussels, the capital of Belgium, died at the age of 100, Andre Glenn-Hershkovichi, who was already a teacher at a school in Brussels during the Holocaust, encountered Jews for the first time when one day one of her students appeared at school wearing a badge. Until then, Glenn, like many other Belgians, had not paid attention to the anti-Jewish measures and the persecution of the Jews. But as soon as she faced discrimination against her students, Glenn decided to take action. On the Jews, according to Yad Vashem.
Glenn became active in rescuing Jews after meeting Ida Sterno, a Jewish member of the secret organization “Jewish Defense Committee,” who needed a non-Jewish partner to help escort Jewish children to their hiding place. Glenn was given a code name – Claude Fournier and had to leave her parents’ house and move to a boarding school where she worked as a teacher. The school was one of the places that was very involved in hiding Jewish children. At the initiative of the principal, Odile Obert, a dozen Jewish children were hidden in it.
In May 1943, the Germans raided the school in the middle of the night. The raid came, apparently, following a tip-off. The students were awakened and forcibly dragged from their beds to check their identities. The timing was not accidental – it was on the night of Pentecost (Christian Pentecost), when all non-Jewish students traveled to their homes to spend the holiday with their families. The Jewish students, who had nowhere to go, were left behind in the boarding school. Jewish students were arrested in the raid and teachers were questioned. Andre Glenn was not afraid in her interrogation and when the German interrogator asked her if she was not ashamed to teach Jews, she replied without hesitation: “Are you not ashamed to wage war against Jewish children?”.
Glenn was not eventually arrested, but Principal Odile Obert and her husband were arrested and sent to concentration camps in Germany, where they perished. Both were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations. The incident did not deter Glenn from continuing her illegal activities. On the contrary. When she left school that night, she went to tell all the Jewish students she knew about the raid and warned them not to return to school. Meanwhile, Glenn’s involvement in the rescue increased and she began to be involved in underground activities. Find out she rented an apartment under a false identity and shared it with Ida Sterno. Contact with the rescue organizations was maintained through secret mailboxes, one of which was hidden in an antiques store.
For over two years, Andre collected children and transferred them to hiding places with Christian families and monasteries. She made sure the families were able to take in the children and continued to visit them and take care of their needs. “Ida and I collected the children from parents who turned to us for help. We told the parents to make a suitcase and we would return in a day or two. I still cry when I remember all the times I had to take children from their parents – especially the little ones, 2-3 years old – and without being able to tell them where I was going. Their children. ” When she set out on a mission she would memorize the names and inscriptions in her head, but secretly she also made lists of the real names alongside the fake names of the hundreds of Jews who were in hiding, many of whom did not get to see their parents after the war.
In May 1944, Ida Sterno was arrested and imprisoned in the Mechelen transit camp. Glenn had to hide. Despite this, she took the risk and went to visit Sterno in Mechelen while using a pseudonym and so Glenn continued to do their job until the last minute.
After her release, Glenn did not stop working. It has now acted in the opposite direction – to return children from their foster families to the arms of their parents or relatives. Over the years, Glenn has kept in touch with her “children” and amazed them time and time again as she remembers every little detail about their childhood in hiding.
On February 2, 1989 Andre Glenn was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations. 18 years later she returned for another visit to Yad Vashem on the occasion of an international conference of children who were in hiding in Belgium. In a special and exciting ceremony at Yad Vashem, she was granted honorary citizenship of the State of Israel.
From the testimony of Andre Glenn
“Many times, when we went to visit Jewish families, we found ourselves in the midst of a raid. Blocked roads, soldiers on every corner and trucks coming to pick up the people caught in the raid. Luckily, we were almost always able to rescue several children, And two more children who held our hands. The soldiers were ashamed to harass the mother with many children. And so the children survived, but the parents … “
Remarks by Andre Glenn in 1998, at a conference of children hidden during the war in Chateau Gemuan in Belgium.
“I was a young woman then. No different from other people. No better and no less good. Life left me far from the upheavals that took place around me. I knew no sadness. Then suddenly, I found myself as a young teacher dealing with this tragedy that befell you. I could not accept it. I met you. I came to your house to pick you up. You put your little hand in mine (the other hand held a large suitcase with the “treasures” your mother packed in tears) and we set out on our journey, I want to thank you for a long time for teaching me about the endless folly of racism. This will accompany me for the rest of my life, I have never felt such a sense of elation, such satisfaction, except when I was raising my children. No other job I have done has filled me with so much pride. “Five more children survived, five more children were not deported, I loved you so much then and I still love you so much today.”
“Israeli Ambassador to Belgium Emanuel Nachshon said that Glenn’s death is very sad news, she was a true heroine of humanity, and we will carry her memory forever, she was an amazing and wonderful woman who saved many Jews during World War II.”
“We have received the news of Andre’s death in deep sorrow,” a statement from the Jewish community in Belgium said, “We are all orphans because we have just lost a lady who behaved exemplary in the face of Nazi barbarism. She did not look away when the Jews needed help, and she saved them from death. If there were more women and men like Andre, the world would be a better place. “