April 19: Anti-Nazi Sabotage in Belgium

Dr. George (Youra) Livchitz, Robert Maistriau and Jean Franklemon, members of the Jewish wing of the anti-Nazi resistance in Belgium, halted a train filled with Jews headed to Auschwitz on this date in 1943. They brought the train to a stop by signaling to it with a red lantern, then held the engineer at bay with a pistol and crowbarred open the doors of several cars. Tools had already been smuggled onto the train, and the imprisoned Jews had begun to crack open their prison from the inside, with several escaping before the hijacking began. Of 1,631 Jews on the deportation train, 231 successfully escaped in the course of that night, many under gunfire from guards. Members of the resistance also penetrated the hospital where wounded escapees were taken. They overran the medical staff and smuggled out the wounded in three trucks. When the trucks were stopped at a Nazi roadblock in Brussels, fighters in the first truck opened fire, and the other two drove off and escaped. Livchitz, the leader of the action, eluded capture for weeks before being arrested, escaping by seizing the gun of a guard, and being arrested again. He was executed by German firing squad in February, 1944. Overall, Jews in the Belgian resistance movement published anti-Nazi literature, worked to sabotage the Nazi war machine by attacking factories and trains, executed collaborators, and hid over 3,000 children and 10,000 adults.

“The finest of all human struggles is against what we are and for what we should become.” —George Livchitz