Bamps Louis & Elisa (Mees)

Bamps, Louis Bamps-Mees, Elisa Louis and Elisa Bamps ran a small farm in Kozen-Alken (today Kozen-Nieuwerkerken), a village located between St.Truiden/St.Trond and Hasselt, near the Dutch border. In 1942, when the danger of deportation grew, the Scheinmans, a Jewish family from Antwerp, decided it would be wiser to shelter their two children in a safe place. They had heard from friends that a family of farmers in Kozen-Alken could be helpful. The Scheinmans made the trip to the village with Antoinette (Toni), their eight-year-old elder daughter, and left her in the care of Liza and Jules Vanzwijgenhoven. The Scheinmans returned to Antwerp but soon also went into hiding as arrestations increased. They asked Toni to find a foster family for her little brother, Maurice, born in 1940. The little girl only knew the farmers living next door, the Bamps family, who had two grown-up children, Maria, 19, and Jules, 16. She asked Maria if her family would shelter a Jewish boy. After consulting with her parents, Maria returned with a positive answer. Louis, her father, was a World War I veteran and had been gassed in the trenches. He retained a strong dislike for the Germans and would go out of his way to save a Jewish child. The Bampses raised Maurice Scheinman as their own son. They lived on a very low budget but food was never lacking since they grew their own. Toni often visited her little brother at the neighboring farm. Both the Bamps and the Vanzwijgenhoven families, enjoyed the tacit support of their neighbors who knew the two children were Jewish and kept silent. Everybody stuck to the official version saying the children were refugees from the city. The Vanzwijgenhovens passed away a long time ago without descents but Toni and Maurice kept up lifelong ties with Maria and Jules Bamps whose parents saved his life. On April 6, 2003, Yad Vashem recognized Louis Bamps and Elisa Bamps-Mees as Righteous Among the Nations.