Episode 2: Former Photography Shop Droesbeke

PODCAST - Merchtem during the Second World War: between collaboration and resistance.
SECTION 2: The Resistance - Constant J. Droesbeke - voices: Mathias De Saeger and Marthe Deveen (6 WeWi) (symbol on the map: Krekelendries 4 - resistance)

2.1: Intro: August De Boeck – Piano Concerto

2.2: Welcome to part 2 of our podcast on the theme of Merchtem during WWII, between collaboration and resistance.

This part is about the acts of resistance of Constant Julien Droesbeke.

Why did people like him go into resistance against the Germans at the risk of their lives? We asked Jean-Claude Droesbeke, the son of the first honorary citizen of Merchtem Constant Droesbeke, still living above the former photography shop.

That afternoon we took a train from Brussels-Midi to Merchtem. In Brussels, we visited the Cegesoma/Rich Archives and looked into Droesbeke's file, among others. It would soon turn out that this was an almost symbolic ride; young Droesbeke was also from Anderlecht.

2.3: Interview with Jean-claude Droesbeke - 22 March 2023 - conducted by Amber Gysens (6 LaWi) and Frederik Van den Broeck (teacher)

Jean-claude Droesbeke: 'Well, I will tell the history for once. My father was indeed born on 25 April 1907 in Anderlecht. And his father and his mother were two orphans. He himself had no brothers, had no family. And his mother had a grocery shop in Anderlecht. And so, yes... He did his army service, and through his army service, he became patriotic. I've always heard he was never hateful towards people with different opinions. But he did have his opinions, and because of that, he joined the resistance. And in the resistance, yes ... I have a bit of documentation here somewhere. [...] It says here, born in 1907, whatever. And then, in 1936, he settled in Merchtem as a photographer. [Bell rings] Jean-claude Droesbeke: They ring. I'm going to open the door, you understand?'

2.4: That's where Amber comes in, she's also taking the interview. So she also hears that 'army service' and 'patriotism', not for the last time these two will be mentioned in the same breath, also inspired Droesbeke to join the resistance during World War II.

Constant Droesbeke was involved in several resistance movements such as the Belgian National Movement and Group Bayard.

How his father, originally a furniture maker from Anderlecht who retrained as a photographer, experienced the Second World War and afterwards looked back on his acts of resistance is revealed to us bit by bit by the son. Still, Jean-Claude Droesbeke remains very careful, even now - 78 years after the war's end. Sometimes he knows all the details; other times, he seemingly has to withhold information.

2.5 interview - see above

Jean-claude Droesbeke: In Mechelen, there was a section superior with whom he came into contact, and that's how he became deputy section chief here in the region, and those are the names of the members who were there at the time. I will give you that, and you can make a copy of it if you like. So the members of the Belgian National Movement, chief section superior, was my father, with that matricule etc. Those were the people who were involved, with whom he then did acts of sabotage. How he exactly got into it, I can't say.

2.6: What he does know for sure is that there was a betrayal. Not that collaborators betrayed him, but members of the resistance themselves.

2.7 interview - see above

Jean-claude Droesbeke: Yes, there was a curfew. He had his that business here. That was exclusively photography. That was portraits - that was communicants, that was weddings - in the studio, no reportage outside.

He had his business here [initially where the 5 for 12 is now] and drove to his mother's from there. Where he went to stay overnight every night, so what happened? They kept him here, so they kept him here so long that he couldn't go back to his mother.

Frederik Van den Broeck: So, if I understand you correctly, it was premeditated that they kept him here, and this would have been someone involved in the resistance?

Jean-claude Droesbeke: Yes, I know who he meant. I will mention that ... Maybe it's written there, but I won't say that name. They still have family here, and they still have people living here. That was one of the members. So then he was arrested. And that gentleman. I always heard him tell me: 'I was in the car, and that one was in the car, and he got a fat cigar from the Germans. And I got a lot of beating.' And then he was taken to Antwerp to prison and from there back to Breendonk.'

2.8: Jean-Claude provides two sets of photographs that his father later took long after his liberation from the camp. What does it do to a person to take photos, he who was only concerned with taking wedding reports and pictures of communicants in his studio, of the places where you were locked up as a prisoner?

2.9: 2.11 interview - see above
Jean-claude Droesbeke: Look, I'm going to tell you first. My father ... I have known my father as ... I was born in 1947, as a little boy and later as a big boy; I have always heard my father tell me or known my father as an anxious person. Unable to sleep at night. Restless. That lasted all his life. Even ... he died in 2015 and was 101 when he passed away. And that never went away. It was so bad that he locked all the inner doors at night. For long years afterwards ... I'm speaking now of the 1970s, 1980s, he always locked all the doors when he went to sleep, so there was always fear there, and he woke up twenty times one night in terror because he heard that and he heard that. There was always something coming back into his memory. He was never able to let go of that.

2.10: It is always a small miracle when people survive the camps. In Droesbeke's case, it was a fatal illness that saved him.

2.11: 2.11 interview - see above
Jean-claude Droesbeke: He was tortured there, and I don't know what, but he never gave anything away, and that's why he was sent to Flossenburg. That's in Czechoslovakia. The people still there were sent on a march of the dead, whereas my father stayed in the concentration camp due to typhoid fever. That proved to be his salvation. He was 38 when he came back.

2.12: How did Droesbeke later look at that period? What values did he impart to his children?

2.13: Part 2 interview with Jean-claude Droesbeke

Jean-claude Droesbeke: Our father had his way of speaking, because that was from Brussels and had his way of speaking. 'Kiddo, I am going to ask you one thing,' that was his way of speaking to me, 'never, ever join an association, at anything, stay neutral from everything and let the rest run its course. Because what I went through I don't wish that on anyone.'

Frederik Van den Broeck: 'Are you telling now, should he have been able to return at the time, he would not have made that decision to join the resistance?'

Jean-claude Droesbeke: 'Yes, I think so by all means. That was part of who he was. When he retired, he enlisted in all kinds of associations.'

2.14: Transport service for invalids and war invalids, transporting the blind, nothing was seemingly too much for Droesbeke to help society, yet we return once more to the fateful day of the arrest.

2.15 interview - see above

Frederik Van den Broeck: I started looking on the internet. Some people advised us to go and look in the archives of the Heemkundige Kring here, among others, and there I found an article from an old French magazine from the early nineties. Your father was photographed there, and the title reads [...], and above it says le village - Merchtem therefore - se trompe des héros. Do you know anything about that?

Jean-claude Droesbeke: Yes, if you've found that, then I'm going to be able to tell you too because that's the person who betrayed him; then he had an interview here after the war in the 1990s with a journalist from the BRT in believe still, at that time it was Maurice De Wilde, or something like that.

2.16: What is not said on record can be pointed out ...

2.17 interview - see above

Jean-claude Droesbeke: Then that was brought up. I always heard 'that person betrayed me' and 'that person has been glorified'. Here ...

Frederik Van den Broeck: Could it be with the Bayard group on the next page? Because this is the Belgian National Alliance. [Frederik Van den Broeck indicates a name on that next page]

Jean-claude Droesbeke: Yes, that's him, and so that gentleman has a street in Merchtem, who has a memorial at his house, the one that was in that picture, that has been removed, that house has been sold, and now a physiotherapist lives in it. What happened to that plaque? I don't know. But in any case ...

Frederik Van den Broeck: Well, I just cycled through the street and didn't find them anymore.

Jean-claude Droesbeke: How those were removed, I don't know, but I have the impression, according to the conversations I have always heard, that those were associates who destroyed them afterwards, but that happened at the end of the 1990s, not before, so...

Amber Gysens: Do you know if this gentleman betrayed other resistance fighters?

Jean-Claude Droesbeke: [doesn't quite understand the question correctly] No, only this person committed the betrayal. Then he was arrested, and that was the end of the story.

2.18: Hiding two fugitive Russians, hiding a Jew in a convent in Mollem, helping a downed pilot stay out of the hands of the enemy, and then still being betrayed from within. What was behind this? And above all, how did he feel about this?

2.19: interview – zie hierboven

Jean-claude Droesbeke: That is right. He only talked a little about that. That was bottled up. That's been kept inside. Those are things that I only found out in hindsight.
Frederik Van den Broeck: So it's not like he told about that every year at Christmas dinner or anything?'

Jean-claude Droesbeke: No, no, our father did not talk about that. Everything he did is here in [bundle of documents published in-house], but he never spoke about that. [...]

Frederik Van den Broeck: I understand that this is sensitive for you, but in the other person's file, you read that he died in n&n and in unclear circumstances, but there is also doubt about that. Do you know anything about that?

Jean-claude Droesbeke: No, what you say there. Nacht und Nebel, which he describes there too.
Amber Gysens: It says so here [and points].

Jean-claude Droesbeke: That betrayed person did not die in the concentration camp. I worked until 2007, and I never cared. All the files, I never bothered myself because I can't do it. I don't want to throw that away. I can't bother with it.

Frederik Van den Broeck: Because it's too sensitive.

Jean-claude Droesbeke: Yes, for me. As he always asked me, don't go anywhere; there are always supporters and opponents because he was with the resistance, not that he was a good one, and that those who supported the enemy, the bad ones, those people did it out of their conviction. [...]

Frederik Van den Broeck: So you are telling us that there was not really a black-and-white distinction?

Jean-claude Droesbeke: No, no ... [he means yes.]

[Confidentially, after the interview, another reason why the membership cards never went to the local history society is mentioned].

2.20: However, history is also being made online. On Facebook, we read on the page 'Ge zijt van Merchtem als ...' in response to a post by Eric Cobbaert and a post by Patrik Droesbeke suggesting that Bursens left Flossenburg alive on 8 March 1945. 'Überstellt und entlassen' is typed above it. I was transferred and released. What follows is not really a discussion but with the necessary question marks. It is clear that they have different views on the fate of those who allegedly committed the betrayal.

2.21:

Each podcast ends with a short literary excerpt. Will you listen in for a while?

Literature excerpt no.2 - Liberated at last by Simon Gronowski by Ruben Van Hemelryck (6 WeWi)

Simon Gronowski: ‘Nadien vroeg hij me mijn geschiedenis op te schrijven. Soms heb ik hem daarvoor verwenst, want hij verplichtte me oude wonden weer open te rijten, waardoor er pagina’s in mijn boek zijn die ik niet durf te herlezen.’

2.22: Outro: August De Boeck – Piano Concerto