Memorial Liza Craessaerts Tervuren

Liza Craessaerts (17/09/1915 - 05/09/1988) lived on the parental farm in the Kerkstraat, now the Schoolstraat in Moorsel (Tervuren). She grew up as the youngest in a large family with no fewer than 11 children. The Dorn Jewish family has lived in Auderghem since 1920. Sami was born there in 1936.

When the Germans were at the gates of Brussels in 1940, Dad Dorn fled to England. In 1942 the situation worsens for the Jews. Mama Paula is thinking of hiding her son. She gets the address of the Craessaerts family through the priests of Auderghem and Moorsel.
In Moorsel, the arrival of the boy is not very suspicious because nine more children are housed on farms to recover. To cover up his true origin, Sami then became Charles Dorn. As a young woman, Liza took care of the boy for three years.
Charles and Paula made it. They return to Israel where Charles (Sami) became an agricultural engineer and worked for the UNO, among others. Liza married Emiel Ceulemans in 1946 and they took over her parents' farm.
It is on Paula Dorn's instructions that Liza received the Yad Vashem Prize in 1980. Her name is on the memorial in Jerusalem.

Sources: "In Moorsel lag mijn redding (Een dorp zo mooi als een plaatje)", by Nathaniel Doron, Els Ronsmans, Aloïs De Munter. Published by Koninklijke Heemkundige Kring Sint-Hubertus Tervuren (2013).

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