In the middle of the night, German Gestapo agents raid several homes in Tessenderlo and arrest Frederic, Petrus, Frans, Albert, and Jozef, all members of the resistance group BNB. Accused of resistance activities and helping people in hiding, they are deported to Germany and sent to different labour and concentration camps, from which none of them returns.
On 10 May 1944, a letter from Frans is sent from the prison in Antwerp to his heavily pregnant wife: “How are you, Vitaline? I hope that when you receive this note, the baby will already have been born, and that everything will have gone well. Don’t ask me how I feel about it; that thought torments me day and night.” On that very same 10th of May, their youngest son is born.
Vitaline continues to believe in Frans’s return. Years after the war, she even has her family photographed so Frans can see how the children have grown, although there is no address to send it to…
The official statement reads: “Died of exhaustion during transport.” That is what she learns about her husband after the war. In order to find out more, she searches for testimonies from survivors. She pieces together fragments of information, but there is little: “Frans was completely exhausted when I saw him for the last time.” “I never saw him being mistreated, but I could tell from his injuries that he had suffered severe abuse.”
As with Vitaline, many families are left with profound unanswered questions. Camp survivors do their best to inform relatives as accurately as possible, but testimonies are sometimes confusing or contradictory. People had endured so much horror that it is understandable that memories merge and dates become mixed up.
Did Frans die of exhaustion during a transport between two camps? Or was he shot during that transport, as one report suggests? Vitaline and his five young children never truly know for sure.
