©Kazerne Dossin, Mechelen
The medical student Robert Maistriau and two friends dared something the organized resistance refused because of the high risk involved: in April 1943, in the vicinity of Mechelen, they stopped a deportation train en route to Auschwitz. They liberated more than a dozen deportees – an unparalleled deed to this day. Only then did Maistriau join a resistance group in the greater Brussels area, with which he carried out acts of sabotage. He was arrested in the spring of 1944. The SS deported him via Buchenwald to the Harzungen and Ellrich subcamps to perform forced labour. At the time of the liberation he weighed a mere 39 kilos. Later he was involved in development projects in Africa. In 1994 he was honoured as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations”.
