Skip to content
FONDS DES TÉMOIGNAGES AUDIOVISUELS DE LA FONDATION AUSCHWITZ
  • Les témoignages
  • A-Z
  • Les témoignages
  • A-Z
  • Les témoignages
  • A-Z

Knappen, Willy

Continuer la lecture

Klipstein, Charlotte
Kohn, Hélène
Biographie

Description de l'interview extraite du site US Fortunoff / Biographie à venir

 

Willy Knappen was born in Mont-sur-Marchienne, Belgium in 1920, a non-Jew. Mr. K. recalls participating in a Protestant youth group; leaving school at age fifteen; working odd jobs; learning to be a baker from his father; military enlistment in September 1938; assignments in Florennes, Konigslo, Rossignol, and Bruges; a futile attempt to leave with British troops after German invasion; volunteering for the bakery when he was incarcerated; transfer to a prison in Bruges; escape; traveling to Brussels, then his home; joining an organization of war veterans; contacting a partisan group; blowing up bridges, railroads, and other strategic sites; deportation for forced labor to Stolberg in 1942; a serious burn incurred while working; hospitalization; transfer to Charleroi; transfer to several prisons, ending at Mons; deportation to Watten; always thinking of escaping; twelve hour shifts at harsh labor; starvation rations; escaping during an Allied bombing; walking to Watou; a local civilian giving him food and money; traveling by train to Brussels, then Charleroi; hiding for two months; learning the Germans counted him among the dead; continuing resistance missions including destroying rail and communications lines; living on farms in Goze?e and Nalinnes; returning their weapons when the war ended; continuing his military career; marriage; moving to Congo for several years; and returning to Brussels. Mr. K. notes he and his father helped transport fleeing Jews; sharing parts of his story with his children; and nightmares about World War II, but not Congo.

Ressources
Fiche interview

Code interview : YA/FA/057
Date interview : 18/01/1995
Lieu interview : Centre Audiovisuel de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles
Durée interview : 4h57
Langue interview : Français
Interviewers : Elisabeth Inchusta et Hessel Daalder
Cameraman : Adrien Antoniol
Consultation : Autorisée
Indexation thématique : Oui
Séquençage interview : non

Mots-clés du témoignage :
Armée Secrète (A.S.) | Mons (prison) | Organisation Todt | Résistant / Résistante | Stolberg | Watten / Eperlecques Blockhaus (Zwangarbeitslager)

Logo Fondation Auschwitz Bruxelles
Fondation Auschwitz –
Mémoire d'Auschwitz ASBL
Rue aux Laines, 17 boîte 50
B-1000 Bruxelles
www
 Demande de contact
pour une recherche approfondie

  +32 (0)2 512 79 98


Mentions légales
Charte de la Vie privée
Politique en matière de cookies

Fortunoff Video Archive
for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale


En partenariat avec
Logo Université Libre de Bruxelles

Avec le soutien de

Logo Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles

Logo Loterie Nationale