Vandenberghen Eugene & Maria ; Daughter: Fernande

Vandenberghen, Eugène Vandenberghen, Maria Vandenberghen, Fernande Eugène and Maria Vanderberghen operated a large liquor store in the center of Brussels. They had two children both of whom had been raised in Catholic institutions. Their son, Louis, 21, was mobilized when Germany invaded Belgium and was taken prisoner. He spent the war in a prisoner-of-war camp near the Russian border. Fernande, their daughter, was 19. Before the war, the Vandenberghen parents had rented a small shop adjacent to their liquor store to a Jewish couple of Polish origins, the Hellers, who worked hard and sold women’s underwear. The two families developed a mutual friendship. Jacques, the Hellers’ only son, was born in October 1939. Fernande took a linking for the baby and cared for him after school. When the persecutions against the Jews got worse, a resistance network found a hiding place for Jacques’ parents outside of Brussels and the Vanderberghens proposed sheltering little Jacques in their house. But it was Fernande who took care of him and was in charge of his upbringing. She raised him as her own child. Some neighbors knew the truth but for some others Jacques was “Fernande’s child”, even though she was not married. On Sunday’s, she often took him to visit his parents in spite of the 15 km trip. She often also drove that same distance by bike to bring them food products and some money provided by a relief network. One afternoon in late 1943, Jacques’ mother arrived by tram to visit her son and then decided to take him to spend the night with her. That very same night, the Gestapo raided the Vanderberghen’s home searching for the child, following a denunciation. They, of course, didn’t find Jacques but he couldn’t return to his hosts. Jacques spent the rest of the war sheltered by a family of farmers. After the Liberation, Fernande kept in daily contact with the boy since his parents again settled next to them. The two families maintained lifetime contact and Jacques andFernande shared a mutual affection. On October 23, 2001, Yad Vashem recognized Eugène and Maria Vandenberghen and their daughter Fernande as Righteous Among the Nations.