An elderly Belgian man was able to meet the descendants of a neighbor who saved him from the Holocaust after his perseverant son and a helpful geneticist managed to track down his grandchildren.
The meeting was organized in the same house where a 5-year-old David Rossler was hidden along with his mother. Now 85, Rossler had a chance to thank the grandchildren for what their grandfather, Georges Bourlet, had done.
Mr. Bourlet lived in Auderghem, Brussels with his four adolescent children, Paul, Jacques, Anne-Marie, and Christiane. Together they gave shelter to Rossler and his mother towards the end of the war in 1944 after Rossler’s uncle and grandfather had already been seized and sent to Auschwitz.
In the present day, David Rossler’s son Lionel has tried for years to find the family that hid his father and grandmother. Thanks to social media and genealogist Marie Cappart at MyHeritage, he was able to track down Anne-Marie’s son Xavier.
“After browsing records and cross-referencing data, Marie found an Anne-Marie Bourlet, born in Auderghem in 1929,” said Lionel. “She discovered that Anne-Marie married someone with the surname Dedoncker and had five children—all of them possibly still alive.”
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“After a bit more research, Cappart found Xavier, one of Georges Bourlet’s grandsons, and managed to contact him.”
Through Xavier, Cappart got in contact with all five grandchildren of Georges Bourlet and explained that Lionel hoped to be able to introduce them to David whom their grandfather had saved when he was just a boy. It became clear that one of the grandchildren lived in the very house that David was hidden in, after which a meeting was set up there.
“It was an incredibly emotional day for us,” Lionel explained. “I was able to see, with my own eyes, the place where my father was kept safe from the Germans all those years ago.”
“If I had Mr. Bourlet in front of me, I would want to kiss him,” said David. “To say thank you with all my body, with all my life, I am alive, I have a family of which I am very, very, very proud of. To tell him that my life is thanks to him.”
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“Nine people were saved thanks to what he did,” Lionel added. “My brother, myself, and our children would not be here today if not for his courage and kindness.
“In Jewish tradition, there is a saying that ‘he who saves one life saves all of humanity’ – Georges Bourlet saved humanity nine times over We are submitting our testimony to Yad Vashem in hopes that he will be recognized for his heroism and granted the title of ‘Righteous Among the Nations,'” said Lionel, referencing the Israeli civilian honor for those who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
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