de Foy Robert

De Foy, Robert Robert De Foy, who had been administrator of the Belgian Security Service (Sûreté) in the Ministry of Justice, became secretary-general of the Ministry after Gaston Schuind was fired from this position on September 17, 1943. He immediately became involved in the efforts initiated by Léon Platteau* to release Jews detained in the Dossin barracks in Mechelen/Malines, thus preventing their deportation. He did so in face of his disapproval of the German violations of the international conventions as well as of their own promises. This was expressed in an official protest letter he wrote on October 15, 1943, to the highest German authority in Belgium, General von Falkenhausen, the military commander of Belgium and Northern France. The system worked as follows: detainees - most of them with Belgian nationality - and relatives were advised by Platteau and De Foy to turn to the Red Cross or the AJB, who in turn applied to the Ministry of Justice, urging their release. The Ministry, through De Foy and Platteau, now approached the military authorities through official letters (always signed by them) – usually to Wilhelm Baron von Hahn, in charge of Jewish affairs at the Political Department of the Military Administration, sometimes even to Eggert Reeder (Head of the Military Administration) - presenting specified, personal cases. They used to point to Belgian nationality, age (older than 65 or younger than 18), serious diseases (such as tuberculosis), being married to an Aryan, etc. Von Hahn proved helpful, and hundreds of people – close to 900 requests were submitted - were indeed released. The requests were in many cases delivered by couriers who sometimes were relatives of a detained person. Platteau used to inform the relatives of the results of his intervention. On December 11, 1975, Yad Vashem recognized Robert De Foy as Righteous Among the Nations. A comprehensive study "La Belgique docile" about the conduct of the Belgian authorities duringthe Holocaust was published in 2006 (31 years after Robert de Foy was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. The study showed that de Foy had a central role in applying Belgium's restrictive emigration policy, in barring emigration and in the expulsion of foreigners, many of them Jews, shortly before and immediately following the German invasion of Belgium. These measures were implemented long before the beginning of the deportations and murder of the Jews, and therefore de Foy could not have been aware of the future consequences of these acts. These expulsions and de Foy’s blocking emigration into Belgium were conducted in the framework of Belgium’s general policy towards foreigners, Jews, and refugees (which was not very different from the policy of other countries). It is claimed that de Foy was motivated by anti-Semitic or xenophobic sentiments, but it is well documented that even though in the late 1930's and beginning of 1940's de Foy followed his country's policy regarding Jewish refugees, he nevertheless decided to act when he was faced with murder of the Jews, saving a large number of them from deportation and death.