Metadata: Esta and Maurice Heiber archives
Collection
- Country:
- Belgium
- Holding institution:
- Centre for Historical Research and Documentation on War and Contemporary Society
- Holding institution (official language):
- Centre d’Études et de Documentation Guerre et Sociétés Contemporaines
- Postal address:
- Luchtvaartsquare 29 / Square de l’Aviation 29, 1070 Bruxelles (Anderlecht)
- Phone number:
- +32 (0)2 556 92 11
- Web address:
- http://www.cegesoma.be/
- Email:
- cegesoma@cegesoma.be
- Reference number:
- CHRDWConS-Brussels-AA 1915
- Title:
- Esta and Maurice Heiber archives
- Title (official language):
- Archieven Esta en Maurice Heiber
- Creator/accumulator:
- Heiber, Mojzesz; Fajersztejn, Estera
- Date(s):
- 1945/1980
- Language:
- French
- English
- Extent:
- 2 boxes
- Scope and content:
- This small fonds exclusively contains private records of Maurice and Esta Heiber. We note files on various subjects such as armed and civil resistance during the Second World War, political prisoners, the Comité de Défense des Juifs and the Amicale du Comité de Défense des Juifs. We also find correspondence of the couple with various private individuals and organisations. The fonds also contains autobiographical documents about the life and resistance activities of both Maurice and Esta Heiber as well as documentation.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Mojzesz (Maurice) Heiber was born in 1908 in Stryj, Galicia. His family moved to Vienna in 1914. After studying in England he came to Belgium in 1926. He established his own company in 1932. His future wife Estera (Esta) Fajersztejn from Warsaw had come to Belgium to study at the University of Liège. During the war Maurice Heiber had accepted the presidency of the Orphelinat israélite de Bruxelles. In 1941 he joined the Vereniging der Joden van België (VJB-AJB), as an employee and later head of its social service. In 1942 Heiber was recruited by the Catholic journalist Émile Hambresin as a ‘mole’ in the VJB-AJB for the resistance (specifically the Onafhankelijkheidsfront and the Comité de Défense des Juifs). He held leading positions in both resistance organisations and remained active in the VJB-AJB. Owing to this postion, he was able to supply the resistance with information and he saved the lives of many Jewish children. Esta, who was a member of the Belgian communist party, was also a resistance fighter. Around May 1943 both Esta and Maurice were arrested and deported to the Dossin Kazerne in Mechelen. They were liberated there in 1944. After a stay in Switzerland in 1947 due to health reasons, Maurice held the function of administrator (from 1949 onwards) for the Aide aux Israélites Victimes de la Guerre. (J.-P. Schreiber, “Heiber, Mojzesz dit Maurice”, in J.-P. Schreiber, Dictionnaire biographique des Juifs de Belgique. Figures du judaïsme belge, XIXe-XXe siècles, Brussel, De Boeck, 2002, pp. 155-156.)
- Access points: persons/families:
- Heiber, Esta
- Heiber, Maurice
- Finding aids:
- List AA 1915. The fonds is also described in the database of the CEGESOMA.
- Links to finding aids:
- http://pallas.cegesoma.be/pls/opac/plsp.getplsdoc?lan=N&htdoc=general/opac.htm
- Yerusha Network member:
- State Archives of Belgium
