Marcel Kirschen archives

Collection

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)

Scope and content:: In this fonds we mainly find documents produced in the framework of the professional activities of Marcel Kirschen, in particular concerning the Rastatt trial (mostly the satellite camp of Hinzert). The fonds contains, apart from a number of personal documents, i.a. correspondence in his capacity as a substitute of the Militair Auditeur te Velde, copies of verdicts, minutes of interrogations of witnesses, notes concerning treated cases and press cuttings related to sentences for collaboration and crimes against humanity.

Administrative/biographical history:: Marcel Kirschen (1901-2000), the son of the businessman Isidore Kirschen, was born in Antwerp in 1901. Between 1923 and 1940 he was attached to the Bar in Brussels. During the Occupation he was imprisoned in the camps of Fischbeck and Lubeck. After the war he was appointed auditeur-militair. Kirschen was also a member of the International Court in Rastatt (Germany). He was appointed judge at the Rechtbank van Eerste Aanleg in Brussels in 1949. Kirschen retired in 1971. (J. Wiener-Henrion, “Kirschen, Édouard”, in J.-P. Schreiber, Dictionnaire biographique des Juifs de Belgique. Figures du judaïsme belge, XIXe-XXe siècles, Brussel, De Boeck, 2002, pp. 194-195.)

Subject terms:: Holocaust; Holocaust--Collaboration; Legal matters; Nazism; Nazism--Nazis; Personal records; Post-WWII trials; Professions; Professions--Lawyers; War crimes

Finding aids:: B. Chagias, Inventaire Fonds Marcel Kirschen (principalement archives du procès d’Hinzert), Brussel, CEGESOMA, s.d. (list AA 1879).