Posted on 11/04/2012 10:55:37 PM PST by nickcarraway
The sister of a Belgian Nazi leader hid three Jews in her home near Brussels during the Holocaust, according to one of the survivors.
Hanna Nadel, now 86, said she, her mother and her niece were rescued by M. Cornet, the sister of Leon Degrelle, who, as leader of the Belgian Nazi Rexen movement, was responsible for deporting Jews to their deaths during the German occupation of Belgium.
Nadel’s account, related to historian Jan Maes, appeared earlier this week in the Belgian-Jewish monthly Joods Actueel,
The three, having escaped deportation orders, wandered with their suitcases around the town of Sint-Genesius Rode, where they happened upon a help-wanted sign on Cornet’s door.
The mother rang the doorbell and Cornet, without asking many questions, hired the mother as cook and Nadel and her niece to work as chambermaids.
Cornet knew the three women were Jewish and promised them they would survive. Visitors associated with the Flemish Nazi movement would routinely dine at the house , while the three Jewish women hid in the basement.
Nadel’s mother would sometimes cook gefiltefish, which the lady of the house advertised to her guests as “oriental fish”, Nadel recalled.
Nadel immigrated to Israel after the war. Leon Degrelle left for Spain, where he died of old age in 1994, escaping the death sentences that his Nazi associates received back home.
interesting story
God Bless her.
I was unaware that Degrelle was protected by the Spanish until 1994. That Franco refused to turn him over was bad enough, but why wasn't he extradited to Belgium in the 1980s? The traitor should have been shot.
It is amazing the number of stories of this sort, they made a movie of one called ( hidden in silence ) these stories should be required reading or watching in grade school and high school.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
..................
...escaping the death sentences that his Nazi associates received back home. Not generic, Degrelle was sentenced to death in absentia.
They tell us what happened to them. They tell us what happened to her POS brother, but they don’t tell us what happened to her!
This is a moving story of the human spirit and basic human decency that comes through at times, even in the face of unimaginable Satanic evil.
Yes, that true. Perhaps due to the media's failure, perhaps information not easily accessable. We don't know the story of her life, but I presume that she's Maria (Cornet) Sixma, honored by Yad Vashem with her husband, & son Frederik Frits as amongst The Righteous Amongst the Nations, so history may remember. Unfortunately little more information, though obviously it's documented at Yad Vashem, just not on the web. Not as important as her SS brother I guess, honored to this day on Nazi sites. I suspect her families story would be of interest, but we can't find much other than her brother.
Perhaps the fact that Degrelle’s death sentence was for collaboration, just speculating. Had he not been expelled from the SS, he could have claimed German citizenship and been free and clear. There are still an SS member or two living in Germany despite post war death penalties. Interesting that he had legal problems with Spain over his neonazi activities.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.