After starting working together online from 2014 on the documentary Viviane’s Story (see e-book on Miracles.Media) now a live meetup in Brussels with Viviane, April 17th 2023, near the Church of Saint Catherine, for several commemoration events on Transport XX to Auschwitz, the deportation train leaving Mechelen 80 years ago, the unique attack, other resistance acts, the rescue, and escapes of over 200 people jumping from that deportation train in the night of April 19th-20th in 1943 – including Isabella Weinreb, pregnant 3 months with Viviane , who was born 6 months later.
License info : Live Meetup Brussels | 20230512 | Miracles•Media | TakeNode d2bbc88c-2b3a-4528-8d01-ab2116bc5672
In the night of April 19-20 at 2 AM the Belgian partisans Romain Baplu, Albert Poncelet, Pieter Schepers (and M. Swinnen)* – operating in the Leuven Partisans group – attacked Transport XX just outside Leuven by building a barricade of tree trunks on the track at Korbeek-Lo, that slowed down the 20th Convoy of 1631 Jews in cattle cars, being deported from the Dossin barracks transit camp in Mechelen to Auschwitz , and thus helped many of the deportees to escape, jumping from the death train, between Korbeek-Lo and Tienen. That was the 2nd attack that night. Earlier , a first attack was performed before Leuven between Boortmeerbeek and Haacht by the three young Brussels’ heroes Youra Livschitz (Dr. Georges Livschitz ; aka Livchitz), Robert Maistriau, and Jean Franklemon, who liberated 17 people during an attack by opening one of the cattle cars.
Romain Baplu from Louvain (Leuven, Belgium) and Youra Livschitz (Dr. Georges Livschitz ; aka Livchitz) from Brussels were both reported on a list of hostages shot , published in the April 15, 1944 bulletin of News From Belgium : … “A List of Hostages Shot — The names of 15 hostages executed in Brussels after the murder of a German soldier have been published: Victor Jacobs, of Louvain; Michel Stockmans, of Hougaerde; Edmond Vertongen, of Linden; Désiré Regent, of Kessel-Loo; Julien Ameye, of Lans (France); Henri Michaux , of Herseaux; Maurice Knarren, of Brussels; Romain Baplu, of Louvain; Louis Dewolf, of Louvain; Désiré Lasterman, of Wesmael; Pierre Renis and Jean Simon, of Louvain; Léon Magne, of Nivelles; Joseph Nejszaten, of Sciepe; Albert Meurice, of St-Gilles, Brussels… … Eight patriots whose names follow were recently shot down by the Germans in occupied Belgium: Albert Romain, of Bièvres; Henry Albert, of Haut-Fays; and Dr. Georges Livchitz, René Lachaud, René Brams, Richard Lipper, Jean-Auguste Leyniers, and René Joseph Emile Denauw, all of Brussels.” News From Belgium Vol. IV, No. 15, April 15, 1944 | Belgian Information Center, New York (USA) | Harvard Law School Library | Digitized by Google. Film License info : Romain Baplu & Youra Livschitz • News From Belgium | 20230407 | Miracles•Media | TakeNode bb8fc1fd-444f-4bba-aecb-1d439b5bdb3e
20240420 : changed Nicolas Poncelet to Albert Poncelet (based on several sources )
*20240420 : changed Marcel Swinnen to M. Swinnen (both Marcel or Maurice Swinnen … retrieved from Huis van het Belgisch Franse Verzet (Facebook, various dates).
*20240420 : Marcel Hollanders also mentioned at site Huis van het Belgisch Franse Verzet (20240419)
November 11, 2022 — Viviane’s Story by Viviane Yarom-Castegnier & Michel van der Burg was first published by Miracles.Media the night of April 19, 2019 as eBook (ePub) including video with a file size of 200 MB.
Now, the 2nd print of this eBook (ePub) is released – with the much smaller size of 60 MB ( same ISBN 9789493147003 ). In addition now a PDF edition of the eBook is released with ISBN 9789493147010 .
You can download both these new eBooks of Viviane’s Story from the site Miracles.Media — both the ePUB (ISBN 978-94-93147-00-3) and PDF (ISBN 978-94-93147-01-0) editions. Link https://miracles.media/vivianesstory/
Viviane's Story
Escape from Transport XX...Born 6 Months Later
by
Viviane Yarom-Castegnier & Michel van der Burg
On the night of the 19th of April in 1943 – Viviane escaped in the womb of her pregnant mother from the Twentieth Train heading for Auschwitz. Isabella Weinreb-Castegnier was three-months pregnant when she jumped that night in Belgium from the fast moving 20th Death Train to Auschwitz. It was Passover eve and full moon.
Isabella escaped with a broken wrist and bruises all over her body, but no other major injuries. Her daughter Viviane – meaning “full of life”, and named so for her will to live and hold tight in her mother’s womb – was born six months later on October 30, 1943 in Brussels, Belgium.
This e-booklet presents Viviane’s story with amazing new insights discovered together with the Dutch-Belgian author-reporter Simone Korkus of the man that helped Isabella jump to freedom – Elias Gnazik.
Published April 19, 2019 by Miracles•Media together with co-publisher Richard Bloom Productions — With a foreword by Simone Korkus — ISBN 9789493147003
Cover image of the Hebrew edition על אנני לא מדברים – We don’t talk about Anny – by author Simone Korkus, published by Carmel , in a translation by Irish Bauman of the original Dutch book Het dienstmeisje van Degrelle (2017) .
Jul 22, 2022 , Israel. Book presentation this morning at Simone Korkus’ home, of the Hebrew edition על אנני לא מדברים – We don’t talk about Anny. Special event in honor of Hannah and Max Nadel, Henri and Madeleine Cornet, Elias and Hava Gnazik. Picture by Embassy of Belgium in Israel | Twitter
Anny
Anny (or Annie) is the war name – nom de guerre – of the Jewish Hannah Nadel who , during the Second World War, ends up as a maid in the Brussels house of the sister of Léon Degrelle — Belgium’s foremost Nazi collaborator — and in this way escapes the horrors of the persecution of the Jews. Simone Korkus brings this unlikely story to life, meets Hannah’s Belgian rescuers and shows how life in wartime contains many gray zones. While Simone Korkus reconstructs Hannah’s life in Brussels, she encounters family secrets and also runs into her own prejudices. For what is truth in the way we look at others and judge their behavior? And how does our memory distort traumas such as those after World War II?
Degrelle’s maid , has been published also in 2020 in a French edition La Servante de Degrelle.
Transport XX to Auschwitz | Viviane’s Story
Hannah Nadel-Gnazik is the daughter of Elias Gnazik who escaped from deportation with Transport XX to Auschwitz and helped jump Isabella Weinreb-Castegnier pregnant with Viviane who was born six months later – see e-book Viviane’s Story | Escape from Transport XX…Born 6 Months Later by Viviane Yarom-Castegnier & Michel van der Burg – With a Foreword by Simone Korkus | URL miracles•media/vivianesstory .
We don’t talk about Anny | Simone Korkus | 20220722 | miracles•media
Memorial Space Dossin ~
A space in which names can be heard aloud. From the secondary school project « Namen noemen » « Nommer les noms » by the Belgian students and Kazerne Dossin | Betty Swaab. With display of the faces with numbers of Transports I – XXVI & Z – in the Kazerne Dossin Memorial in Mechelen, Belgium. Filmed and sound recording May 2013.
Memorial Space Dossin | 20210512 | michelvanderburg•com | Miracles•Media
Viviane’s Story
Escape from Transport XX…Born 6 Months Later
Today 76 years ago – on the night of the 19th of April in 1943 – Viviane escaped in the womb of her pregnant mother from the Twentieth Train heading for Auschwitz.
Isabella Weinreb-Castegnier was three-months pregnant when she jumped that night in Belgium from the fast moving 20th Death Train to Auschwitz. It was Passover eve and full moon , just like today.
Isabella escaped with a broken wrist and bruises all over her body, but no other major injuries.
Her daughter Viviane – meaning “full of life”, and named so for her will to live and hold tight in her mother’s womb – was born six months later on October 30, 1943 in Brussels, Belgium.
This e-booklet presents Viviane’s story with amazing new insights discovered together with the Dutch-Belgian author-reporter Simone Korkus of the man that helped Isabella jump to freedom – Elias Gnazik.
Published today April 19, 2019 by Miracles•Media together with co-publisher Richard Bloom Productions – ISBN 9789493147003
With a foreword by Simone Korkus.
Viviane Yarom-Castegnier & Michel van der Burg
April 19, 2019
Note
The e-book contains several video’s – and is designed specifically for Apple devices such as iPhone, iPad, Mac.
Coming soon , the free ebooklet Viviane’s Story by Viviane Yarom-Castegnier & Michel van der Burg from Miracles.Media (publisher).
Viviane escaped 75 years ago in the womb of her pregnant mother from the Twentieth Train to Auschwitz.
Isabella Weinreb Castegnier was three-months pregnant that night of the 19th April 1943 in Belgium, when she jumped from the fast moving 20th Train heading for Auschwitz. Isabella escaped with a broken wrist and bruises all over her body, but otherwise without major injuries. Her daughter Viviane – meaning “full of life”, and named so for her will to live and hold tight in her mother’s womb – was born six months later on October 30, 1943.
More on Viviane’s story here in “Escape from Transport XX – to be born 6 months later – Viviane’s story” : https://michelvanderburg.com/2014/04/28/escape-from-transport-xx-to-be-born-6-months-later/ Music : Ameet Kanon singing Ve’Ulai (“And Perhaps”) a capella.
Film ① memo 20190127 ~ Viviane’s Story ebook ~ by Michel van der Burg – Miracles.Media
