de Liedekerke Rene & Henriette (D'Oultremont)

De Liedekerke, René De Liedekerke-D’Oultremont, Henriette D’Oultremont, Isabelle D’Oultremont, Clémentine Count René de Liedekerke, his wife Henriette, and her sisters Clémentine d'Oultremont and Isabelle d’Oultremont lived on the family estate Château Duras (St. Trond/St. Truiden), with the elder Count Emmanuël and Countess Antoinette d’Oultremont. The estate served as a Home for needy children within the framework of the Léopold III recuperation camps. By 1942, however, there were about 30 children, some of whom were Jewish, the others children of resistance fighters or people deported by the Germans. Among the Jewish children were Marie Schwartzenberg, Michel Rybowski, Karl Sternlicht and Isaac Jerozolimski (currently Yitzhak Yerushalmi). All members of the extended De Liedekerke/D’Oultremont family were involved in the care for their charges. While it was Isabelle who carried the main burden for the children’s well-being, it was Henriette who would take a child in need of medical treatment to the neighboring village for treatment. On December 11, 1942, Henriette saved the two Gorbitz brothers, Raymond, eight, and Henri, seven, from deportation, and took them to her family’s estate. They stayed until the end of the war. A brother of René, Count Raphaël De Liedekerke, who was in charge of the education of the Gorbitz brothers, was shot by the Nazis for his activities in the Resistance. One night the Germans searched the house when the children were already in bed. As the Germans were looking for English parachutists, the children were luckily spared. After learning, at the end of the war, that the Gorbitz parents did not survive the concentration camp, the extended D’Oultremont/De Liedekerke family raised them as if they were their own children. They remained in castle Duras until the completion of their studies. On May 6, 1980, Yad Vashem recognized René de Liedekerke and Henriette de Liedekerke- d’Oultremont as Righteous Among the Nations. On July 17, 2000, Yad Vashem recognized Countess Isabelle d’Oultremont as Righteous Among the Nations.