Brodie pattern MK II green steel helmet worn by a Belgian officer

Marcel Frank was born on August 1, 1897, in Celle Saint Cloud, France, the only child of Jewish parents, Guillaume and Elsa Lazare Frank. The family lived in England for a few years, but Marcel mostly lived in Brussels, Belgium. His father was a violinist and stockbroker. Marcel also became a stockbroker and, with his father, commuted daily to Antwerp. His father died just before World War I (1914-1918.) Marcel volunteered to serve in the First World War and returned before the wars end when he was wounded in the right arm. After the war, he resumed his career as a stockbroker. Marcel converted to Catholicism to please the family of his future wife, Renee Moniquet. They married in 1925 in the Eglise de l'Annonciation in Ixelles. Their daughter Jacqueline was born on November 28, 1926. The family lost a great deal of money during the depression of the late 1920s-30s, but kept their home. In May 1940, Nazi Germany invaded Belgium. The Franks tried to flee to England through Normandy, but were turned back by the Germans. It is unclear whether Marcel was registered as a Jew or had to live in hiding to avoid the anti-Jewish policies enacted by the German occupying authorities. However, he did not leave their apartment during the years of occupation. His mother was placed in a home for the elderly and died of a stroke during the war. Jacqueline, a student at the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, assisted the underground resistance movement by transporting resistance flyers in the bottom of her paint box. After Brussels was liberated in September 1944, Marcel signed up for military service. He was assigned to the British army as a Belgian liaison officer. He was with the Army when it liberated Bergen Belsen concentration camp in late April 1945. He was stationed in the nearby town of Lueneburg and was present when the British Army uncovered a mass grave in the nearby forest. The remains were identified as those of forced laborers. Former Nazi officials were forced by the Army to exhume, build coffins, and rebury the 243 bodies and the townspeople were required to attend the burial ceremony. Marcel assisted with the repatriation of Belgian survivors and the care of displaced persons in the Lueneburg displaced person camp. During the War Crimes Trials held by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, he served as a translator. Marcel, age 49, died on November 14, 1946, in Bedburg, Germany, in an automobile accident. He was buried in a Catholic ceremony. In 1948, his body was reburied in the military honors section of the cemetery in Ixelles. He was posthumously named Chevalier de l'Ordre du roi Leopold II.

The helmet was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2013 by Michèle Dognon-Schmitt, the granddaughter of Marcel Frank.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Michèle Delsaute Dognon-Schmitt

Funding Note: The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.