Archives of Lucien De Geyter

• Access: The fonds Lucien De Geyter can be freely accessed during the opening hours of the reading room. Reservation.
• Reproduction:  The content of the fonds may be freely reproduced in the reading room. Practical information for requesting a reproduction by CegeSoma personnel can be found here.
• Finding aids: Inventory AA1550

Fonds description:

Lucien De Geyter collection about his own deportation and the concentration camps in general

The Lucien De Geyter archives contain important documentation about his professional life and his action within the Resistance, but in particular about his own deportation and the mode of operation of concentration camps. The documents were collected by De Geyter after the war with the purpose of upholding and passing on the memory about these times. For easier access, CEGESOMA has reorganised the archives by topic while keeping chronological coherence within the different dossiers.

Lucien De Geyter joined the resistance group De Zwarte Hand created in 1940 upon the German invasion; he participated in resistance actions in the Rupel region. His long ordeal started when he was arrested on 27 October 1941. He was transferred to Breendonk, Antwerp and Forest before eventually being sent to the concentration camp of Wuppertal on 29 February 1942. De Geyter was also sent to the concentration camps ofEsterwegen, Börgermoor, Laband, Buchenwald, and Gross Strehlitz in which he successively served a forced labour sentence of 7 and a half years. He survived the ‘death march’ organised by the Nazis to evacuate the concentration camps as the Allied Forces advanced. Struck by illness, he was finally liberated by Soviet troops at the camp of Terezin. Lucien De Geyter was first cared for in Germany before joining his loved ones on 1 July 1945. After the war he became a member of the Association of former members of De Zwarte Hand and continued to carry out his duty of memory.

For more information :

• Maerten, Fabrice. "La résistance en Belgique, 1940-1944". In Le fort de Breendonk. Le camp de la terreur nazie en Belgique pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Dossier pédagogique. Bruxelles : Racine, 2006, p. 33-59.
• Maerten Fabrice, "La résistance en Belgique durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale", http://www.democratieoubarbari...
• Verhoeyen, Étienne. "Quatrième partie : la résistance". In La Belgique occupée. De l’an 40 à la Libération. Bruxelles : De Boeck-Wesmael, 1994, p. 331-511
• Mampaey, Tjen. De Zwarte Hand : Het verzet tegen de nazi's in Klein-Brabant en de Rupelstreek. Berchem : EPO, 2018.
• Van Kamp, Kurt. Het verzet van de Zwarte Hand : Een fataal avontuur. Antwerpen : Davidsfonds, 2019.

• Maerten, Fabrice. Papy était-il un héros ? Sur les traces des hommes et des femmes dans la résistance pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Bruxelles : Racine, 2020.