Memorial Todor Anguelov Schaarbeek

In Schaarbeek there is a monument for Lieutenant Colonel Todor Anguelov.
He was born in Kyustendil (Bulgaria) on 12 January 1900.
He was a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party and took part in the failed September Revolution in Blagoevgrad in 1923.
After the bomb attack in the Sveta Nedelia Cathedral he was sentenced to death but he managed to flee abroad with his family. After a few wanderings he ended up in Belgium in 1927 where he was banished in 1930 for disturbing public order.
During the Spanish Civil War he was a member of the International Brigades where he served in the Bulgarian Dimitrov Battalion.
In 1932 he was given the opportunity to return to Belgium where he joined the Communist Party.

During the German occupation in 1942 he was active in the resistance. He organized a resistance group, the "Corps Mobile de Bruxelles", under the auspices of the "Partizanen Armés" and linked to the "Front de l'Indépendance", the most important Belgian underground movement.
The network consisted of approximately 25 people, mainly Jewish immigrants. Under his leadership, they carried out approximately 2,000 actions against the Nazi regime, including the destruction of a train with military equipment. They also burned registers of Jews to be deported.
During the first year, half of the group was arrested or killed. Angelov himself was arrested in early 1943 and imprisoned in the Fort of Breendonk. On November 27, 1943, he was sentenced to death, together with 28 other prisoners. On November 30, 1943, he was executed at the National Shooting Range.
Todor Anguelov was buried in the Honorary Cemetery of the Executed. He was posthumously awarded the Order of Leopold and honorary citizenship of his native village of Kyustendil.

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Source

• Text: TracesOfWar
• Photos: Marie-Christine Vinck