What a wonderful world.
On Wednesday I took the early morning train to Mechelen near Antwerpen, to visit the memorial Kazerne Dossin. The so-called "waiting room“ for Auschwitz in Belgium. I wanted to visit the museum and be present during the start of the „Elke naam telt“ event, every name counts.
During World War II, 25,843 people were interned in the Dossin Barracks. They were stripped of their names and assigned numbers before their deportation, most of them did not survive. The memorial invites people to read their names out loud and records them, and keeps them to memorise all the people who have been murdered. I read the name of Tobias Muller, born also on 24th of march like myself, in 1896.
The most memorable moment was the appearance of Simon Gronowski. Monsieur Gronowski survived the Holocaust, because his mother helped him escape from the train that was heading to the death camps. He was the only survivor of his family, his mother and sister were killed at the camps and his father died of a broken heart shortly after the war. Simon found comfort in music and became a celebrated jazz pianist. Although very old he held a speech at the celebration about his life and warned in fiery words about the danger of the far-right, the ground on which the evil dwells.
After that we were treated with some piano music by a young master student from Belgium, but also by Simon himself. To listen to this man, with his life-story playing „What a Wonderful World“ by Louis Armstrong left everybody in the room speechless. I still am deeply impressed, it still moves me as I write this.
I am so thankful that I could be there and witness this. Thanks to Anne-Sophie from the memorial for the invitation. And I feel so honoured that I am able to draw Simons story of his escape for the comic anthology “The Unimaginable Image”.
