Lhoir Fernand & Maria (Deltenre)

Lhoir, Fernand Lhoir-Deltenre, Maria Yvonne Jospa, of the CDJ knew Fernand Lhoir, who headed a secular orphanage in Brussels, when she had worked there prior to the war. After the arrest and deportation of Jews started in the summer of 1942, she contacted Lhoir to explore the possibility of placing Jewish children there. Fernand and Maria Lhoir responded affirmatively to Jospa’s request, and they admitted over 30 Jewish children. Dr. Christine Hendrickx-Duchaine* provided the children with certificates of good health, and the CDJ provided them with ration cards. All but eleven hiding children had forged IDs. Before the first Jewish children arrived, Fernand Lhoir assembled all the personnel and residents of the orphanage, and told them that new children were expected; they were different, they were persecuted, and they had to be well received. Thus everybody knew that the new children were Jewish. The children arrived there gradually, beginning on August 1, 1942. Some were sent by the CDJ; others were brought in by their parents, who had somehow learned of this existing possibility. Very soon, the number of orphans in the home was nearly doubled. The new children were lodged on mattresses on the attic floor. Parents who could afford it paid between 600 and 900 Francs per month for their child’s upkeep; the CDJ took over for parents who were deported, or if for some reason they could no longer make the payments. The Jewish children did not go to school with the others. They stayed in the orphanage and were taught by special teachers. The following names are some of the children rescued by the Lhoir-headed orphanage: Willy Koch; Ruth Lisak; Rachel Bindel; Raymond Van Frank; Stéphanie Geist; Marie and Maurice Lerner; Maria Spilman; Shirley and Hélène Jozefowicz; Charles, René and Jacques Paciorkowski; Abraham Groskopf; Henri Rosenthal; Paul Epstein; Marie, Hélène and Elisabeth Guttmann; Marcel Frey; Victor Obuchowski; Henri Schindler; Paul Bratstein; SarahAszkenase; Manfred Rosenberg; Jacob Frank; Marcel Romerowski; Salomon Karolinski; Benjamin Hamburski; Henri Zilberberg; Jacques and Albert Spitz; Pierre Wiener; François Ziegelman and Henri Arcnis. The eldest among the children was born in 1927, the youngest in1940. On July 7, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Fernand Lhoir and Maria Lhoir-Deltenre as Righteous Among the Nations.