Photograph of a Jewish prisoner named Aharon Schultz, who managed to escape from the Nazi detention camp at Breendonk in July 1942. Inscribed on the reverse in handwriting (French): “Aharon Schultz escaped from Fort Breendonk in July 1942 when he jumped from the train that was transferring Jewish prisoners to Mechelen. He hid until the end of the war in Rumpst” (apparently referring to the town of Rumst).
During the German occupation of Belgium in World War II, Breendonk served as a detention camp, where Jews from the Belgian community were also imprisoned. On September 20, 1940, the first prisoners arrived at the fort. In the first year of the camp’s operation, Jews comprised about half of its prisoner population, held separately from the others. Among those imprisoned were Rabbi Shlomo Ullman, the Chief Rabbi of Belgium’s Jewish community, and leaders of the Belgian Jewish Association. Prisoners typically stayed in the fort for about three months before being sent to concentration camps in Germany, Austria, and Poland. They endured harsh living conditions, starvation, denial of medical care, and cruel treatment from the camp staff, and were subjected to forced labor. The Germans also conducted interrogations, torture, and hangings at the fort. Political prisoners of various kinds were interrogated under severe torture. In August 1944, as Allied forces approached Belgium, the Germans began evacuating Fort Breendonk. Executions in the camp increased in those months – by firing squad, hanging, and other methods. Many prisoners were executed immediately upon arrival. At the same time, the Germans evacuated the fort and transferred the remaining prisoners to the Mechelen camp or to camps in the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland. The first German commandant of the fort, Philipp Schmitt, was tried in Belgium in 1949, convicted, sentenced to death, and executed in 1950.
Size: 14×8 cm. Good condition.
