be-002157-kd 00846
type: RecordSet
archival history: On 30 August 1995, Mr. Simon Gronowski kindly permitted the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance, predecessor of Kazerne Dossin, to digitise two letters and three photos in this collection. On 21 May 1996, Mr. Simon Gronowski permitted to digitise five other letters, one diary and two postcards. In 2019, he permitted to digitise 128 other photos.
biographical history: Simon Gronowski, born on 12 December 1931 in Uccle, Belgium, is a Holocaust survivor. His parents were Léon (or Lajb, or Leib) Gronowski and Chana Kaplan. Léon Gronowski was born on 19 April 1898 in Rodziejów, Poland. He was a leather merchant. Chana Kaplan was born on 10 December 1902 in Jurbarkas, Lithuania. Before Simon, the couple had a daughter named Ita who was born on 24 September 1924 in Liège, Belgium. The family lived at Chaussée de Wavre, 639, in Etterbeek, Brussels, Belgium. Remacle and Madeleine Rouffart were neighbours of the Gronowski family. The two families developed close relations. Madeleine Rouffart was also the manager of Mr. Gronowski’s leather enterprise. Her son, Raymond, was a close friend of Simon. Her daughter, Marguerite or Maggy, was a schoolmate and friend of Ita Gronowski. With the onset of the deportations of the Jews to death camps in summer 1942, Madeleine found a hiding place for the four Gronowskis with the family of an acquaintance, Mrs. Poilvache, in Woluwé-Saint-Lambert, Belgium. They stayed here from 1 September 1942 to March 1943. On 17 March 1943, caused by a denunciation, Simon, his sister Ita and their mother Chana, were arrested by the Gestapo. Léon Gronowski was not at home. He was at the hospital because of depression. Simon, Ita and Chana were interned in the Dossin barracks for one month. On that same day, Remacle Rouffart and José Delsart, went to the hospital where he was being treated and whisked him out to prevent his arrest. They brought him to the house of José’s parents, Julia and Charles Delsart, where he found safe shelter until the end of the war. During the Gronowskis’ incarceration in the Dossin barracks, Madeleine Rouffart visited them, provided them with food parcels, transmitted their letters and tried desperately to free them, but without success. On 19 April 1943, Simon and his mother were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau with Transport XX as numbers 1233 and 1234. Ita was sixteen years old and could op…
location of copies: Digital copy available as collection KD_00846 at Kazerne Dossin.
location of originals: KD_00846_A000821 until KD_00846_A000829 are stored in the archive of Kazerne Dossin Research Centre. The other items in this collection are part of the private collection of Simon Gronowski.
other finding aids: https://kazernedossin.memorial/biografie/simon-gronowski/
publication note: GRONOWSKI S., Simon, het jongetje dat wist te ontsnappen, Van Halewyck, 2005. GRONOWSKI S., TINEL K., VAN REYBROUCK D., Eindelijk bevrijd, Hannibal, 2013. PIRART F., GRONOWSKI S., Simon, l’enfant du 20e convoi, Renaissance du Livre, 2008. MICHIELS M., Het XXste transport naar Auschwitz. De ongelijke strijd op leven en dood, Antwerp, 2012. STEINBERG Maxime and SCHRAM Laurence, Transport XX Malines-Auschwitz, Brussels, 2008.
related material: An audio-visual testimony of Simon Gronowski is part of the Johannes Blum collection at Kazerne Dossin (KD_00016); Fonds Directorate of War Victims: A000772- A000773, Sipo-SD file of Simon Gronowski.
accruals: No further accruals are to be expected.
conditions of access: Contact Kazerne Dossin Research Centre: archives@kazernedossin.eu
conditions of use: Contact Kazerne Dossin Research Centre: archives@kazernedossin.eu
has beginning date: 1920-01-01
has end date: 2018-12-31
has or had holder: be-002157
has or had some members with language: fra
has or had some members with language: yid
has or had some members with language: nld
has or had subject: 519
has or had subject: 598
has or had subject: 338
has or had subject: 204
has or had subject: 800
has or had subject: 112
has or had subject: 868
has record set type: Collection
identifier: KD_00846
record resource extent: 253 digitised images (132 photos, 2 identification cards, 6 letters, 1 diary, 2 postcards)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: This collection comprises photographs documenting the life of the Gronowski family in Belgium from the 1920s to the 1940s and postwar until 2018. It includes images of Simon Gronowski and his sister Ita, capturing various stages of their lives, and also various photographs of their parents, Léon (Leib) Gronowski and Chana Kaplan, taken among other places in their garden at 639 Chaussée de Wavre, Brussels. Also included are photos of Simon and Ita in the Ardennes, and of Ita in class photos from primary school and École Cymring and with classmates like Albert Goldman, Jacques Angielczyk, and Maurice Wulfowicz. Additionally, there are photos of Léon in army uniform from 1920, Chana with her mother in Lithuania in 1923, and Léon with friends in the early 1920s. Photographs from 1941 and 1942 show Ita and friends in Brussels during German occupation, often wearing the yellow star mandated for Jews. The collection also includes a yellow Star of David worn by a family member, and photos of Simon four months after escaping Transport XX, during a holiday in Couvin with the Rorive family who hid him there for a few weeks. Aside from photos, there are also documents included in this collection. Two letters were written in June 1943. The first is from Simon Gronowski, a Jewish hidden child, to his father, stating that he is safe with Mrs. Delsart and has heard his mother is in Upper Silesia. He also mentions that Mrs. Rouffart is trying to free his sister Ita from the Dossin barracks. The second letter, from Léon Gronowski to Simon, advises Simon to be brave and careful, stating that a reunion will happen after the war. The third letter, written in Yiddish by Chana Kaplan from the Dossin barracks on 18 April 1943, is addressed to her husband Léon. Ita Gronowski wrote two letters on 14 August 1943, to her father Léon, describing her monotonous life in the Dossin barracks and warning him of potential round-ups, and to her brother Simon, urging him not to forget her and to write …
title: Gronowski-Kaplan family. Collection