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Heroes of Israel

Youra Livchitz

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Who

Youra Livchitz · Heroes of Israel

What

Belgian doctor who, with two friends and one pistol, stopped the twentieth deportation train to Auschwitz — the only such attack in occupied Europe.

When

30 September 1917, Kyiv, Russian Empire (now Ukraine) — 17 February 1944, Brussels, Belgium

Where

Brussels, Belgium

Biography

Youra Livchitz is recognized among Israeli contributors to Heroes of Israel — Belgian doctor who, with two friends and one pistol, stopped the twentieth deportation train to Auschwitz — the only such attack in occupied Europe.

How & why

Youra Livchitz was the son of Jewish immigrants from Kishinev, raised in Brussels and a doctor by training. Active in the Belgian resistance from 1942, he printed underground papers and taught clandestine courses. On the night of 19 April 1943 he and two non-Jewish school friends, Jean Franklemon and Robert Maistriau, stopped the twentieth deportation convoy from Mechelen to Auschwitz with a storm lamp covered in red paper, a pair of pliers and a single pistol; 17 people were freed at the wagon they opened, and in the confusion more than 200 jumped from the train, of whom over a hundred survived.

It is the only attack of its kind on a Holocaust train anywhere in occupied Europe. Livchitz was arrested, escaped, was recaptured, and was shot at the Tir national in Brussels on 17 February 1944.

Sources & external links

Verify and go deeper with these external references.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youra_Livchitz

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Contributions & Sources

Belgian doctor who, with two friends and one pistol, stopped the twentieth deportation train to Auschwitz — the only such attack in occupied Europe.

1943

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youra_Livchitz