“It was ordinary people who risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazis,” says David Rossler (85) from Rebecq in Belgium. “I want to remind you of that.”
David himself gets to live and see his own children and grandchildren grow up. Thanks to one man: George Bourlet (1896-1976), a surveyor from the Auderghem district of Brussels. For Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, David’s greatest wish is before he dies: Israel’s memorial Yad Vashem should remember his savior and him to the “Righteous Among the Nations” appoint.
1940. The German Wehrmacht overruns Belgium. After only 18 days the country capitulates. At the time, Jude David Rossler (née Langa) was just two years old. His grandfather and uncle are arrested and disappear forever. The little boy first fled to a Catholic monastery with his mother Sabine.
When the convent is attacked a short time later, Résistance supporters save mother and son. They in turn contact the surveyor Georges Bourlet.
He doesn’t hesitate and hides the two in an apartment on the first floor. Throughout his life, however, David has only vague memories of the tall man, his four children and the white town house. At the end of the war he was only six years old.
The white town house of the Bourlet family in the 1930’s and past year
Family name? Address? Birthday? None!
After the Second World War, Sabine married an Auschwitz survivor and moved to Austria with him. The traumatized mother does not talk about the time with the Bourlet family. And so the contact to the rescuers is lost.
In the 1960s, David returned to Belgium and started a family. The years pass and the desire to say “thank you” grows. David: “Without George I would never have grown up, never had children. He’s my hero!” But he just can’t get any further in his search.
In fact, he lived less than an hour from George.
In 2022, Rossler’s son Lionel (55) starts a last call via Facebook. Lo and behold: Genealogist Marie Cappart (47) from “MyHeritage” notices him. The woman compares telephone directories from the 1930s with Rossler’s rudimentary information and combs through various archives. Marie to BILD: “The four children were a search approach.” And indeed: Marie quickly finds a family of six in Auderghem named Bourlet.
Questions to the descendants revealed: Yes, we were once told that grandpa hid a Jewish boy and his mother. But not much was said about it.
A short time later see you again! Rossler recognizes the “white house” immediately.
With tears in his eyes, David says: “The family can be so proud of their grandpa.”
When asked by BILD, the international Holocaust memorial reported that the application had been received and was currently being examined. But that takes a lot of time. Time David may not have.