Gross-Limonik family

Baruch alias Bernard Gross was born on 25 July 1908 in Losie, Poland, as the twelfth of fifteen children born to the orthodox Hassidic couple Arie Leib Gross and Silka Gross. The family lived in the shtetl Gorlice and spoke Yiddish at home. Bernard attended a cheder and was well educated in the Jewish scriptures. In his free time he played chess. In 1927 Bernard’s parents sent him abroad so he would not be drafted into the Polish army. Bernard clandestinely left Poland and, on 25 December, he arrived in Antwerp where he was supposed to board a ship for the United States where several of his siblings already lived. However, due to an eye condition Bernard was not allowed to travel. He stayed in Antwerp instead and learned to cut diamonds. Later on he became a diamond dealer. In the early 1930s, while out dancing in the Middelheim park in Antwerp, Bernard met Bronia Limonik. Bronia had been born on 6 February 1913, in Kyiv (then Russia, today Ukraine), as the third of four children born to Salomon Limonik and Rachel Cheftel (born on 9 May 1880 in Kyiv). The Limonik family was rather well-to-do. Father Salomon had been an officer in the Tsarist cavalry and owned a scarf factory. Bronia grew up in Russia where she attended school and meetings of the Russian Pioneers youth movement. In 1922, father Salomon died due to typhoid fever, leaving mother Rachel to take care of their four children. On 8 December 1927 the family arrived in Belgium, where they had relatives. After attending school for a short while Bronia became a milliner to earn money to pay for the treatment of her sickly brother David (who passed away in 1931) and the schooling of her second brother Jacob alias Jacques. Bernard Gross and Bronia Limonik fell in love and married at the Antwerp municipality on 20 August 1935. The religious ceremony was held on 15 September 1935. On 20 March 1938 Bronia gave birth to a daughter named Esther Denise. Upon the invasion of Belgium by Nazi-Germany on 10 May 1940 Bernard and Bronia tried to flee Belgium, but upon arrival in De Panne found the French boarder closed. The family returned to Antwerp and was subsequently forced to obey the anti-Jewish decrees. On 14 August 1942 Bernard was claimed as a forced labourer by Organisation Todt and was sent to the Camiers labour camp in northern France from where he was able to remain in contact with his family in Antwerp. A few days after his departure Bronia and daughter Denise moved from the family apartment at Lamorinièrestraat 64 to Lange Leemstraat 225 where Bronia’s mother Rachel Cheftel and Bronia’s sister Tatiane alias Tania lived. By then Bronia’s brother Jacques (born on 15 July 1911 in Kyiv) had already fled Belgium. He would be deported from Drancy, France, to Kaunas, Lithuania, via transport 73 on 15 May 1944 and would be murdered. On 11 September 1942 the building at Lange Leemstraat 225 was raided. Bronia, who was heavily pregnant, as well as her mother Rachel and her daughter Denise were left behind but Bronia’s sister Tania (born on 25 March 1915 in Kyiv) was arrested and was deported from the Dossin barracks to Auschwitz-Birkenau via transport IX on 15 September 1942. Tania did not survive. Bronia, Rachel and Denise hid in their own apartment where, on 20 October 1942, Bronia gave birth to a second daughter named Monique. On 31 October 1942 Bernard was deported from northern France to Auschwitz-Birkenau via transport XVI. However, he jumped from the train en route and joined his wife and daughters in hiding at Lange Leemstraat. On 31 July 1943 Nazis came to clear out the apartment. Bronia, her mother and her daughters were discovered and arrested. Bernard, hiding behind the couch, was overlooked. Bronia and Rachel were sent to the Antwerp prison at Begijnenstraat, Denise and Monique to a Jewish orphanage. Bronia was released from prison after convincing the prison doctor to let her go. She collected her kids and returned to the apartment at Lange Leemstraat where she was awaited by Felix Lauterborn, a Flemish SS collaborator. While he was getting a car to drive Bronia and the children to the Dossin barracks in Mechelen, Bronia escaped with the kids. They received help from one of their neighbours, misses Vygh, who was a member of the Witte Brigade [White Brigade] and who found refuge for Bronia and the girls in the convent of the Soeurs de l’Espérance [Sisters of Hope] at Lamorinièrestraat in Antwerp. Bernard joined his wife and children there. In April 1944, for security reasons, mother superior dispersed her Jewish protégés. Bernard stayed at the convent, while Bronia was first hidden with the family of a lawyer in Liège, and later, when it became too obvious that she was pregnant, in a convent for unwed mothers in Liège. Denise and Monique were entrusted to the Jewish Defence Committee, the largest hiding network in Belgium. Posing as Denise and Monique De Groot the girls were first sheltered by misses Leclair at Chaussée de Bruxelles 212a in Waterloo and subsequently by Marie, Angèle and Jeanne Van Den Abbeele and Ernest and Maritte Marks-Van Den Abbeele at Rue de Lessines 30 in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean. Bernard, Bronia and their two girls survived the war in hiding. A third daughter, Rosette, was born on 20 October 1944, eight weeks after Liberation. While Bronia took on a job at the Jewish orphanage in Brussels, Bernard restarted his business and was involved in the reopening of the Jewish Tachkemoni school in Antwerp. All his relatives that had remained in Poland were murdered during the Holocaust. Bronia was reunited with her mother Rachel Cheftel who had been deported on 20 June 1944 via a special transport from the Dossin barracks to Vittel, France, where she survived the war. The Gross-Limonik family rebuilt their life in Antwerp. Bernard passed away on 17 January 1982, Bronia on 10 June 2003. Their daughters and grandchildren live in Israel and the United States.

On 7 March 2023 Rosette Gross-Becker was interviewed by Veerle Vanden Daelen, curator at Kazerne Dossin, via Zoom. In addition, misses Gross-Becker donated a copy of her manuscript "Tu n'as pas souffert (You did not suffer)" to the institution. On 29 May 2023 Denise Gross-Feibusch and Monique Gross-Banne were also (simultaneously) interviewed by Veerle Vanden Daelen.

Rosette Gross-Becker, Denise Gross-Feibusch and Monique Gross-Banne, 2023