Memorial Resistance Fighter Pierre Davignon

In the Saint-Gilles church hangs a relatively inconspicuous plaque for priest Pierre Davignon.

"In Memory of Priest Pierre DAVIGNON
here, on September 3, 1943, arrested and died exhausted, imprisoned in Germany, after a life of exceptional charity, on February 10, 1945"

Pierre Davignon (°Ixelles 1912) came from the Belgian noble family Davignon.
He studied at the Sint-Lodewijk Institute in Brussels and Sint-Thomas Aquino in Leuven. From 1931 he attended the seminary in Mechelen and was ordained a priest in 1935. After that he was vicar in Saint-Gilles.

Davignon supported the resistance during the occupation by Nazi Germany.
He was arrested on September 3, 1943 and taken via the prisons of Ghent and Sint-Gillis (June 1944) to Groß-Strehlitz and from there to the Groß-Rosen concentration camp in early November 1944.
Before the approach of the Soviet army, he was transferred to the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. He died on February 10, 1945, while at the age of 32 he was being transported in an open cattle truck en route to Nordhausen.

Source: Wikipedia

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• Text: Marie-Christine Vinck
• Photos: Marie-Christine Vinck