Our presenters on January 27th, Marie Horak and Adrien Carlier, spoke to us about surviving WWII and Working in the Belgium Underground
Marie Horak is the grandmother of Nina Gazel and Adrien Carlier is the stepdad of Jackie Dale.
Marie Horak
Ms. Horak remembers Jacob Levy coming over to her home in Germany because he always had candies and shoes for the children. He would buy fertilizer from her family’s business. The last time she saw him, she was told to never tell anyone he was at their home and learned much later that he was Jewish and that her father helped him escape to France. The help her father provided was discovered and he lost his fertilizer business.
She also remembers at 14-year old polish girl who was taken in by neighbors and taught to speak German. After the war, the girl came back to thank the community for their help.
Food was very scarce and rationed. As the eldest child, she remembers going hungry as she prepared food for her younger brother. She jokingly holds this against him to this day.
At one point during the war, her family was given 2 hours to pack and vacate their home. It was difficult to know what to pack as they were put into trucks with no idea where they were going. When they eventually settled, it was under extremely stressful living conditions.
Adrien Carlier
Mr. Carlier worked as slave labor in Germany as a 17-year-old. Whenever the Red Cross visited the facility, the Germans would hide him because he was underage. An injured German soldier working there befriended him and made sure the Red Cross found him at one of their visits. This allowed him to return home to Belgium. At the facility, he remembers that 282 Jews worked there at one point and then, one morning, they were gone.
His time in Germany destroyed his stomach lining. A doctor’s successful treatment was to have him eat raw liver until he healed.
He witnessed air combat where a plane was shot down. He rode his bike to its location and transported the American pilot to safety on his bike. It was his understanding the pilot would work his way to Spain, and he hopes he made it.
One time, when the Germans were planning to enter Holland, he was able to cross the bridge to Holland to warn the people in the town of what was to come. He succeeded in crossing due to his ability to speak German after watching two people get arrested.
These remembrances need to be shared so history is passed on and, hopefully, doesn’t repeat itself.
