©Nederlands Bidprentjes Archief
He had been considered a rising young talent in the Belgian cycling world. In 1938, he took part in a junior race for the first time. His name soon kept appearing in the on the lists of winners. Beginning in 1942 he started for the cycling club W.S.C. Torhout as a young cyclist.
As of mid 1943, he was no longer among the starting cyclists. André Dekeyser was deported to Germany, probably as a forced labourer. In February 1945, the Gestapo in Dresden sent him to Buchenwald as a political prisoner. At this point in time, he was already very weak. He spent the following weeks until liberation inside the Little Camp in Buchenwald, a miserable area of the camp, into which the SS crammed inmates no longer able to work.
Upon his return, Torhout only weighed 37 kilogrammes and was immediately admitted to a hospital in nearby Bruges. However, he did not manage to recover from the effects of his concentration camp internment. André Dekeyser died on June 11, 1945, at the age of 23. He left behind a wife and a daughter.
