When David Rossler, 84, was a child, he and his mother were taken in by Georges Bourlet and his four young adult children in 1944. They were allowed to hide in their home in Brussels in the waning months of World War II.
Rossler and his mother were Jewish, and Belgium was occupied by Nazi Germany. If they had been caught, they would have been taken to a concentration camp and probably would have been killed.
Rossler had already lost his uncle and grandfather after they were taken to Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland and he would later lose his father.
If Bourlet and his family had been caught hiding Rossler and his mother, they would have been in danger as well.
“People who protected Jews were simply risking their lives. You wouldn’t end up in jail, but in Auschwitz—and Auschwitz, you didn’t end up anywhere but in the crematoria,” Rossler said in a video produced by MyHeritage.com.
After Allied forces liberated Belgium in 1945, Rossler moved to Austria and lost touch with the Bourlets.
When he entered his 80s and his health was in decline, his final wish was to be able to thank Bourlet’s family for their incredible bravery and humanity.
Rossler’s son, David, did everything he could to find the family, including putting ads in the paper and posting on social media. After one post he received a message from Marie Cappart, country manager for MyHeritage in Belgium, who wanted to help.
“My husband lost his grandfather during the war. He died at the concentration camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau,” Cappart told Newsweek. “My own great-grandmother also died in the camp at Ravensbrück. She was British and was in Belgium as part of the resistance. Sadly she was caught by the Nazis and deported. She never came back.”
“After browsing records and cross-referencing data, Cappart found an Anne-Marie Bourlet, born in Auderghem in 1929,” Lionel said. “She discovered that Anne-Marie married someone with the surname Dedoncker and had five children—all of them possibly still alive.”
“After a bit more research, Cappart found Xavier, one of Georges Bourlet’s grandsons, and managed to contact him,” he continued.
Finally, after 75 years, David Rossler returned to the place where he hid in 1944 and 1945 and thanked Bourlet’s five grandchildren.
“It was an incredibly emotional day for us,” Lionel explained. “I was able to see, with my own eyes, the place where my father was kept safe from the Germans all those years ago.”
“If I had Mr. Bourlet in front of me, I would want to kiss him,” said David. “To say thank you with all my body, with all my life, I am alive, I have a family of which I am very, very, very proud. To tell him that my life is thanks to him.”
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