Baucq Gaston & Jeanne

Baucq, Gaston Baucq, Jeanne When Mania Swieca’s husband, a tailor, was arrested at his workplace in Brussels, his colleague Gabrielle Scheurs came to warn Mania that she needed to flee with her son Isidor (b. 1940). Gabrielle took them to her relatives, Gaston and Jeanne Baucq, who lived on a farm in Horrues. Gaston Baucq was the village policeman. He provided Mania with a false identity card into which he glued her picture. This enabled her to work on one of the neighboring farms, knowing that her son was being taken care of. Isidore became very attached to the Baucqs, and was sad to leave them when the war ended. He returned with his mother to Brussels, but made frequent visits to the Baucqs until 1951, when he and his mother immigrated to Canada and contact with their rescuers was broken. As he approached old age, Isidor Swieca felt the need to reestablish contact with the family that had saved him and his mother during the war. He asked his relatives, Isi and Jacqueline Eisenstrog, to try and trace the Baucq family in Horrues. The Eisenstorgs went to the Horrrues cemetery to look for the names on the tombstones. While they were there, they met a former neighbor of the Baucqs who not only remembered the little boy who stayed with them during the war, but was also able to provide the addresses of their children. On December 15, 2010, Yad Vashem recognized Gaston and Jeanne Baucq as Righteous Among the Nations.