In Memoriam Ward Adriaens • 20241119

Ward Adriaens, Kazerne Dossin, ca 2005 • Still from the 2012 film ‘Transport XX to Auschwitz’ • Miracles•Media • 20241119_1 • URL https://michelvanderburg.com/2013/04/19/transport-xx-to-auschwitz/

November 2024. Ward Adriaens Passed Away

by Michel van der Burg • Miracles•Media

Ward Adriaens (Mechelen, Belgium) passed away suddenly on the evening of November 15th, 2024. A wonderful man, a freethinker, author, with a passion for living history, especially the resistance, partisans, in World War II, and the founding director in 1995 of the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance (JMDR) that opened its doors in 1996. In 2012 the JMDR became the Kazerne Dossin museum, with Ward Adriaens as honorary curator. In 2005 Ward Adriaens launched the Give Them a Face archival project. The portraits of all Jewish, Roma and Sinti deportees which passed through the SS-Sammellager Mecheln (Dossin barracks, transit camp, Mechelen) in 1942-1944, were scanned to create the “Give Them a Face” portrait collection. All around 20,000 photos in the Give Them a Face portrait collection are now part of the commemoration wall – a permanent exhibition – at the Kazerne Dossin museum.

In 2009 , I first encountered the Transport XX installation in Brussels, and met Ward Adriaens’ team of the Give Them a Face project in the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance in Mechelen, Belgium (1,2).

Next , Ward Adriaens participated in our 2012 documentary Transport XX to Auschwitz (3).

Recently, May 2024, Ward Adriaens’ opening speech at the TRANSPORT XX installation in Mechelen in 2007, was posted in the ‘Miracles’ project at Miracles•Media (4).

Quote

“…Let us clearly understand that this is the fundamental basis of racism: persecuted because we have a mother. We all have parents and many amongst us have children. In order to protect them it is essential that we do not give an inch to racism. Everyone of us will come under threat should the policy makers be influenced by racism…”

We lost Ward Adriaens… way too soon…

Michel van der Burg • Miracles•Media

Notes

1. Encounter • Miracles Docs #1 • Miracles•Media • 20240419 • URL https://miracles.media/2024/04/19/20240419/

2. Faces • Miracles Photo Story #1 • Miracles•Media • 20240419 • URL https://miracles.media/2024/04/19/faces-miracles-photo-story-1-20240419/

3. Ward Adriaens’ interview by the dutch reporters Piet de Blaauw & Aart Zeeman (Dutch NCRV-Netwerk broadcast, 13 April 2005, NL1) from the documentary ‘Transport XX to Auschwitz’ – a film by Karen Lynne & Richard Bloom and Michel van der Burg • In : Documentary film “Transport XX to Auschwitz” • Miracles•Media • 20130419 • URL (retrieved 20241119) https://michelvanderburg.com/2013/04/19/transport-xx-to-auschwitz/

Ward Adriaens • Film clip ‘Transport XX to Auschwitz’ • Miracles•Media • 20241119_2 • URL (retrieved 20241119) https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxBThndqEFjIk8Oq0-bbKzia9mF-kBe-2N

4. Speech by Ward Adriaens, Curator of The JMDR, Friday 20th April 2007. In : TRANSPORT XX installation Mechelen • Miracles•Media • 20240518 • URL https://miracles.media/2024/05/18/transport-xx-installation-mechelen-20240518/

Citation info : In Memoriam Ward Adriaens • Miracles•Media • 20241119 • URL https://michelvanderburg.com/2024/11/19/in-memoriam-ward-adriaens-20241119/

Cuttecoven • Miracles Moment #3 • 20240716

Cuttecoven | Miracles Moment #3 | Miracles•Media | 20240716 | ISAN 0000-0007-36B4-0003-8-0000-0000-D

Simon’s escape route from Transport XX …
Watch at Miracles•Media – https://miracles.media/2024/07/16/cuttecoven-miracles-moment-3-20240716/

Viviane – 80 Years After Escape From Transport XX | 20231030

Short impression of Viviane telling her story April 2023 in Boortmeerbeek, Belgium, at the 80th anniversary of the attack on Transport XX near Boortmeerbeek — the Twentieth Train heading for Auschwitz, the night of April 19-20, 1943. Viviane escaped from Transport XX in the womb of her pregnant mother Isabella Weinreb-Castegnier who jumped from this death train, with the help of Elias Gnazik, shortly after the 2nd attack on this train near Bierbeek, Belgium. Viviane was born 6 months later October 30, 1943 in Brussels … and celebrates her 80th birthday today, October 30, 2023, in LA, USA 😉 Music : Al Kol Ele by Crescendo Boortmeerbeek Choir .

Full story available in free e-Book download :
Viviane Yarom-Castegnier & Michel van der Burg. Viviane’s Story: Escape from Transport XX… Born 6 Months Later [e-Book]. Boskoop, Miracles.Media, 2019. Distribution [ISBN (ePUB) : 978-94-93147-00-3 | ISBN (pdf) : 978-94-93147-01-0]. URL https://miracles.media/vivianesstory/

Citation : Viviane – 80 Years After Escape From Transport XX | 20231030 | Michel van der Burg | Miracles•Media | TakeNode 84175450-c147-4fd9-9039-8ca85995ff46

TAGS #Viviane #Castegnier #Yarom #escape #Transport #XX #Auschwitz #attack #resistance #rescue #Bierbeek #miracle #child #music #Boortmeerbeek #Brussels #Belgium #Mechelen #Kazerne #Dossin #transit #camp #deportation #train #holocaust #shoah #genocide #discrimination #diversity #rights #art #war #Jew #nazi #survival #Al #Kol #Ele #TakeNode #1Memo #MiraclesMedia #michelvanderburg #Crescendo #Elias #Gnazik #Isabella #Weinreb #Simone #Korkus

PUSH Opera Epilogue 2020 | Westerborkfilm Images #2 | 20230728

Images from the Westerborkfilm have been used countless times in documentaries and films about the Second World War. Here images screening in the virtual opera PUSH – based on the story of Simon Gronowski – an 11 year old Jewish boy who was pushed from the train – Transport XX – by his mother on the way to Auschwitz — Video clip https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxsM6Rj_HB0xEh4TksbjhIm4EzY81dc4H0

A virtual performance, during the April 2020 Corona virus lockdown, of the epilogue of the community opera PUSH , entitled : Ma Vie N’est Que Miracles | My life is only miracles – hosted by composer Howard Moody. It premiered on the night of the 19th April 2020, exactly 77 years after three Brussels resistance heroes stopped the Nazi train Transport XX, transporting 1600 Jewish deportees to Auschwitz, and more than 200 prisoners escaped from the train before the German border. Info : michelvanderburg.com/2020/04/19 .

#Westerborkfilm #footage #PUSH #Miracle #virtual #child #community #opera #online #Simon Gronowski #Transport #XX #music #premiere #Howard #Moody #Sarah #Ehrlich #Shogo #Hino #liberation #Brussels #Corona #covid #virus #home #lockdown #performance #Adrian #Zolotuhin #Belgium #Mechelen #Kazerne #Dossin #Westerbork #Holland #Netherlands #transit #camp #deportation #train #car #film #screening #holocaust #shoah #genocide #discrimination #diversity #rights #art #war #Jew #Sinti #Roma #nazi #survival #collaboration #SettelaCom #ISSN29499313 #TakeNode #1Memo #MiraclesMedia #michelvanderburg

Kazerne Dossin | Westerborkfilm Images #1 | 20230727

Images from the Westerborkfilm have been used countless times in documentaries and films about the Second World War.
Here Westerborkfilm images – clips – screening semi-permanent ten years ago (Feb. 2013) in a museum introduction film (on holocaust, genocides, discrimination, diversity, rights) on one of the huge columns in the entrance hall of the Kazerne Dossin museum in Mechelen, Belgium (a few months after opening of the new Kazerne Dossin building). Note, shortly after this outbound deportation transport to Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz, had left the Westerbork transit camp on May 19, 1944, the train paused at the nearby railway station of the dutch town Assen, where train cars were added from Belgian Transport XXV (25) with 508 deportees, Jews and the Roma deportee Stevo Caroli, from transit camp Kazerne Dossin (Dossin barracks) in Mechelen, and this combined transport with Jews, Sinti and Roma, including Settela Steinbach, continues to the east…to the Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz concentration camps. Stevo Caroli survives Auschwitz-Birkenau. After returning to Belgium, Stevo Caroli’s request for a certificate, necessary for the compensation for political deportees or work refusers, is refused by the Belgian Aliens Police for racial reasons ( kazernedossin.memorial/biografie/stevo-karoli/ ).

#Belgium #Mechelen #Kazerne #Dossin #Westerbork #Holland #Netherlands #transit #camp #station #Assen #Westerborkfilm #deportation #train #car #film #screening #permanent #wall #pillar #column #hall #museum #documentary #holocaust #shoah #genocide #discrimination #diversity #rights #art #war #Jew #Sinti #Roma #nazi #hall #child #survival #Stevo #Caroli #Settela #Steinbach #racism #Transport #XXV #TakeNode #1Memo #MiraclesMedia #michelvanderburg

Sally’s Invasion Star

June 25, 2023 — Contact between the families of Sally and Nelly is re-established !

Sally Frankenthal – Kalwary was living in Antwerp in the 90s when she requested Yad Vashem a Righteous medal posthumous for “Nelly Quintard” .. the lady that had been hiding Sally Frankenthal and her parents during World War II. However, Mrs. Sally Kalwary – Frankenthal was not able to find Nelly’s family …. and the medal went to the Kazerne Dossin museum in Mechelen.

This month contact was re-established with Sally’s family. Unfortunately, too late to meet Sally Frankenthal – Kalwary, who died three years ago.
Sally’s family shared photo’s taken of Sally before and after her hiding — both with stars…posted in today’s update of the Story of Righteous Nelly • Quintart aka Quintard .

References

Sally’s Invasion Star | 20230625 | Settela•Com | ISSN 2949-9313 | URL https://settela.com/2023/06/25

Dossin Archive Coincidence | 20230611

Coincidence — Today I noticed at the Kazerne Dossin facebook page, that last week has been “International Archives Week”.

The stars are aligned…
For over 20 years Kazerne Dossin has had in its archives the Righteous Medal with the name ‘Nelly Quintard’.
We, by coincidence also last week, contacted Kazerne Dossin, and shared our new findings with their Archive team, on this medal – one of their many archive items ….!

The story on Righteous Nelly , discovered together with Nelly’s godchild Mrs Renée Cassin , was published last month in the post titled:
Story of Righteous Nelly • Quintart aka Quintard
[ URL michelvanderburg.com/2023/05/26 ]

Dossin Archive Coincidence | 20230526 | michelvanderburg•com | Miracles•Media | TakeNode 79b94c80-0845-4f2a-869f-dc36ab9932d7