Righteous Among the Nations Honored at Yad Vashem – JNI Media BREAKING ISRAEL NEWS
Righteous Among the Nations Honored at Yad Vashem
“All the nations are gathered together, and the peoples are assembled; who among them can declare this, and announce to us former things? Let them bring their witnesses, that they may be justified; and let them hear, and say: ‘It is truth.’” Isaiah 43:9 (The Israel Bible™)
On Monday, Yad Vashem, the world Holocaust remembrance center, held a ceremony posthumously honoring Joseph and Marie Andries from Belgium as Righteous Among the Nations. Chairman of the Commission for the Designation of Righteous Among the Nations and Supreme Court Justice (ret.) Jacob Türkel presented Dr. Francoise Rampelberg, family member of Joseph and Marie Andries, with the medal and certificate of honor. Holocaust survivor Benno Gerson, and Serge and Stefan Goldberg, sons of the late Anni Goldberg, attended the ceremony.
Extended family members of Benno Gerson and Anni Goldberg were reunited at the ceremony thanks to the efforts of Yad Vashem during the research process for this recognition.
Following the Kristallnacht pogroms of November 1938, Luser-Ludwig and Pepi Gershonowitz decided to leave Germany. They first sent their daughter Anni to the Netherlands, and then followed with their son Benno. Eventually the family settled in Brussels, Belgium.
When the deportations from Belgium began, in 1942, the Gershonowitz family decided to separate from their children in order to save them. Seven-year-old Anni and five-year-old Benno were brought to the home of Joseph and Marie Andries in Anderlecht. On September 24, 1942, Ludwig and Pepi were arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where they perished. Several months later, the Andries family and the children moved to Sint-Pieters-Leeuw, where they remained until the end of the war.
