Hollants Elisabeth

Hollants, Elisabeth M. Elisabeth M. Hollants (Betsie), was a journalist and editor of the Morgenpost in Brussels. As a devout Catholic, she was involved in defining Church policy on the crucial issues of the 1930s. In 1936, together with Camille van Deyck, a literature professor and politician from Antwerp, she initiated the creation of the Catholic Bureau for Israel (KBI). Confronted with growing antisemitism in the Flemish part of Belgium during the 1930s, the Bureau’s program aimed at combating anti-Jewish hatred and promoting closer relations between Catholics and Jews. The KBI existed only for two years and was dismantled following its inability to turn into a nationwide organization, and to rally the Church’s upper hierarchy. With the German invasion and the promulgation of the anti-Jewish legislation, Elisabeth was involved in the rescue of many Jewish children from the Nazis’ grips. She found foster families for some in the countryside and placed others in Catholic institutions. Elisabeth was personally acquainted with two Jewish families, the Gourarys and the Chananias. In November 1942, Judith Gourary, 27, fled from her Brussels apartment to avoid arrest. Elisabeth found her a hiding place at the Notre Dame de la Paix convent (Onze Lieve Vrouw van Vrede) run by the Benedictine Sisters in Menin/Menen. She provided her with false identity papers in the name of Hélène van Doren. Only the Mother Superior, three Sisters and the convent’s physician knew her real identity. The convent sheltered mentally disturbed persons and Judith was passed as one of them. Elisabeth had previously sheltered Myriam Chanania and her mother in the same convent after providing them as well with false identity papers. When their stay in the convent became too dangerous, Elisabeth moved the two women elsewhere. Myriam was hidden at the Saint-Elisabeth Nurses School in Namur/Namen. All three women survived thanks to Elisabeth Hollants’ courage and generosity. On March 24,2002, Yad Vashem recognized Elisabeth M. Hollants as Righteous Among the Nations.