Reynders Henri

Reynders, Henri (Bruno) Henri Reynders was born in Brussels in 1903, and in 1922 he was ordained a priest, and joined the Benedictine Order in Leuven/Louvain. In 1942, when he was assigned to a small home for blind people in Hobdomont, Reynders learned that the manager of the home and many of the residents were Jews in hiding. After the adults were taken away, he contacted Albert van den Berg*, who worked within the framework of Christian aid organizations to which the institution belonged, and the children were quickly moved to other hiding places. During this operation, a deep friendship developed between Van den Berg and Reynders and, beginning in January 1943, they began to work together in other rescue activities. Reynders (better known as Dom Bruno) used all his influence to find hiding places with friends and acquaintances. He traveled from place to place on his bike and personally concerned himself with solving problems and dealing with the minute details of all the plans for which he was responsible. Initially he worked alone, receiving just financial support from the Van den Berg operation; he was also assisted with funds by the Belgian banker and economist Jules Dubois-Pelerin*. Over time, he made and expanded his contact with other groups, found himself forced to move from place to place to avoid being caught by the Gestapo. Reynders did not only send children to private addresses, such as his mother’s home and the home of his brother Jean Reynders*, but also knocked on doors of various Catholic institutions in search of other sheltering places for Jewish adults and children. All accounts of Father Reynders describe him as a courageous person, who was willing to take many risks in order to save as many people as possible, running into several hundred – mostly children. The personal notepads belonging to Reynders, which contain many names and much information, provide important information of his rescue work. After the war, Reynders addedadditional comments in these notebooks, which he then released in a book entitled En Feuilletant mon cahier de Notes. In it, Reynders describes the hiding places of the Jews that he helped through his work in the underground, including the names of all the places they hid in and what he did for them. These notebooks include 307 such entries, and Reynders is known to have directly helped more than this number of people, including children. Those helped by Reynders expressed their deep appreciation to the man, such as in the two following testimonies. Gilles Rozberg: “It was one night in 1943. I had just turned 13 years old. I met Father Bruno on the street. He didn’t know me but I recognized him by the way he walked, the cloak he wore, and his tall, elegant hat. I really threw myself at him and asked for his help. After a few seconds of suspicion and concern, he said he was ready to help me. Two weeks later, my younger brother and I were taken to a hiding place.” Flora Singer-Mendalavitz: “I don’t know exactly how I first made contact with Father Bruno. In any case, this angel came and saved our lives. Father Bruno found a new hiding place for us and gave my mother instructions on how to get to the northern train station with three children, and there we would meet a woman dressed in a special way who was waiting for us. According to the notes, we had to follow this woman onto her carriage on the train without kissing our mother goodbye or saying farewell. We did this and after the train pulled out of the station the woman turned to us, kissed us, and told us we were being taken to a safe place. After the liberation, we went to live in Brussels and Father Bruno visited us regularly. He helped us and brought us food. He always asked my mother if she needed anything. Once, Father Bruno registered me in a Catholic school and he also registered me in courses of typing, painting, and piano, which were taught to me by one of the Sisters of the convent. Father Bruno paidfor everything. Even today when I sit and type, like now as I write this, I see Father Bruno’s face in front of me and I say ‘Thank you.’ When he registered me for the Catholic school, he gave firm orders to exempt me from Christian ritual lessons and other religious instruction classes.” Research into Father Bruno Reynders’s wartime activities led to the publishing of a book in 1993, under the title Resistance, Pere Bruno Reynders, Juste des Nations. It includes a list of names of all the people that worked with Reynders as well as recollections of his work that involved forging identity documents, baptism certificates, money, food coupons and principally finding hiding places for fleeing Jews. On October 10, 1964, Yad Vashem recognized Father Henri (Dom Bruno) Reynders as a Righteous Among the Nations.