A period of holocaust can bring back painful memories for generations, and even after, people don’t even want to remember the extremely painful people that every human being is afraid of. Because of this, these massacres are one of the scariest periods in world history.
It is only after the Second World War that the victims come to terms with their memories of the past.
Lionel Rossler, 55, from Rebeq, Belgium, survived Nazi persecution during World War II with his now 85-year-old father, David, and his mother, Haja Sura Zoltak.
David Rossler, who was born in 1938 with the surname Langa, took the last name of his stepfather, who survived Auschwitz. After living in Brussels, Belgium, the Jewish community began to be persecuted and tormented.
His father and uncle, who were arrested by the Nazi army, were never able to see each other again after that, and since the day the Nazi army started killing Jews, they have traveled to different areas to save their lives.
However, through this catastrophic situation, his mother and young David were lucky enough to survive temporarily and stay in a Catholic convent. In 1994, Georges Bourlet of Auderghem, Brussels, and his two young children, Paul, Jacques, Anne-Marie, and Christiane, survived the Nazis.
David manages to save the lives of Lionel’s father and grandmother when he was 5 years old. Because of his courage and kindness, Lionel was able to save his children as well as his brother.
They lost contact with the Bourlets after the war and left to live in Austria after David’s mother remarried.
Lionel, who did not forget to express his gratitude to the future generations about his father’s experiences and oppressive circumstances, started looking for his family because he was able to save his father’s and grandmother’s lives.
Lionel’s family consisted of a father, two daughters and two sons, all from the Bourlet family, and his search was successful in January 2022 when he posted a request for help in French on Facebook.
Seeing Lionel’s post, Marie Cappart, a genealogist and manager of MyHeritage.com in Belgium, wanted to help him and she was willing to contribute to such a good research challenge.
Marie was able to use the 16 billion records in the online archives to find Bourlet’s descendants as well as a grandson.
Searching these records in 1929 for Anne-Marie Bourlet, born in Auderghem, found Marie. It was further discovered that Anne-Marie Bourlet had five children and was married to someone with the surname Anne-Marie Dedoncker.
Marie manages to find Georges Bourlet’s grandson Xavier and is able to contact him. Xavier already knew a little about this story.
David and his mother who lived in Auderghem, descended from Georges Bourlet, are also related to Marie through this.
Lionel and Marie decided to return to the house where David was protected and meet them all.
David and his son Lionel came together two months after the Facebook post was released as the Georges Bourlet family in the same house they survived 80 years ago.
It was a very emotional day and Lionel got to see firsthand the place where Lionel’s father was kept safe from the German Nazis for years.
Lionel further said that this is an extreme victory that he has received and the satisfaction received from it cannot be said to be this much.
MyHeritage later created a YouTube video in French with English subtitles based on this story.
Years later, David is grateful to the Bourlet family for helping to save his and his mother’s lives.
David, who remembers Mr. Borlet with love, says with tears in his eyes that he is still alive today because of them and he is happy and proud of that.
Because of Rosslers, I was able to know not only the life and heroism of my grandfather, but also the complete story of the Bourlet generation.
As a tribute to her grandfather and her husband’s grandfather, who were victims of these wars, Marie was grateful to be able to participate in helping the above-mentioned join together.
Georges Bourlet risked his life to save an entire family. Considering this, Marie had modestly commented that there was nothing else to compare it to.
The Rosslers are urging people to refer a case to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center.
As a tribute to the actions of Georges Bourlet, Lionel said that the person who saves one Jewish life will work to protect the entire human society without hesitation. Because of his act of bravery, he granted life to nine more lives.
The turning point in Lionel Rossler’s life marks the day his family was rescued by Georges Bourlet.
You can add new hope for the future life, look at the world from a new dimension, and get beneficial things by searching about your family and knowing the family history.
Lionel further points out that it is essential to ensure that such opportunities are available to Holocaust survivors who are quickly disappearing.
