Memorial "Rote Kapelle"

The "Rote Kapelle" (Red Orchestra) was a loose group of anti-Nazi resistance fighters spread throughout Europe with a radio transmission location in Brussels. On 13 December 1941, the Gestapo raided the building arresting and interrogating three people. The raid and interrogations resulted in the Gestapo being able to decipher resistance group messages and locate other anti-Nazi resistance groups in Germany. The site was commemorated in 2002 by the city of Brussels.

The house at 101 Rue des Atrébates in Etterbeek was rented by Rita Arnould-Bloch.
Rita Bloch was the daughter of Abraham Bloch and Francine Wolf. Rita was born on September 11, 1914 in Amsterdam. Her brother Iwan Gerhard was born a year earlier on May 16, 1913 in Saint-Gilles (Brussels). The family lived alternately in the Netherlands and Belgium. Abraham improved the sale of the I.G. Bloch & Gebr. Stibbe at 35 Rue d'Angleterre in Brussels. After a long illness, Abraham died on February 21, 1921. He was 36 years old. The family continued to live in Brussels and Rita went to university there. On December 6, 1939, she married the much older Albert Arnould and they moved to 57 Avenue du Parc in Saint-Gilles. Rita went to work at the Société Financière Belge-Canandienne until the entire staff was dismissed in May 1940. On June 6, 1941, Robert Arnoud died in the St. Pierre hospital in Brussels.
During her studies at the university, Rita had met the Belgian Isodor Springer and he introduced her to the resistance movement Die Rote Kapelle (The Red Orchestra).
Die Rote Kapelle was created in circles of North German artists and intellectuals and received support from the Soviet Union. It became one of the handy spy networks and resistance groups against Nazi Germany and spread throughout the occupied territory in Europe. Men tried to transmit important information to the Allies using radio transmitters. A tourist network of channels was called a Kapelle by the Nazis. The transmitter was considered a keyboard because of the tapping of the morse key, and the wireless operator was the pianist.
In Belgium, men had three channels, in Etterbeek, Uccle and Molenbeek.
Rita (code name Julia, Juliette) was agent of the Belgian department of Die Rote Kapelle. She gave shelter in her home at 101 Rue des Atrébates in Etterbeek and was also a courier.
On the night of December 13, 1941, the German counterintelligence raided the house and arrested Rita, the Soviet agent and wireless operator Anton Danilov (code name Albert Desmet) and coder Sophie Posnanska (code name Anna Verlingen).
Rita ended up in the Kriegswehrmachtgefängnis Sint-Gillis. On April 19, 1943, Rita was notified by the Feldgericht z.V.B.d. Luftwaffe in Berlin-Steglitz (Aktenzeichen AKStL 52/43) sentenced to death for espionage. The same day they were incarcerated in the Moabit side prison in Berlin with prison number 164/43.
On August 19, 1943, she was moved to the women's prison at 10 Barnimstraße in Berlin (under number 2911/43), this was an intermediate station for the execution. The next day at noon she was transferred to Plötzensee prison where she would be executed the same day.

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