Metadata: Georges Schnek archives
Collection
- Country:
- Belgium
- Holding institution:
- Jewish Museum of Belgium
- Holding institution (official language):
- Musée Juif de Belgique
- Postal address:
- Miniemenstraat 21 / Rue des Minimes 21, 1000 Bruxelles
- Phone number:
- +32 (0)2 512 19 63
- Web address:
- http://www.new.mjb-jmb.org
- Email:
- info@mjb-jmb.org
- Reference number:
- JM-Brussels-Fonds Georges Schnek
- Title:
- Georges Schnek archives
- Title (official language):
- Fonds Georges Schnek
- Creator/accumulator:
- Schnek, Georges Arthur
- Date(s):
- 1926/2011
- Extent:
- 42 boxes and 10 moving boxes
- Scope and content:
- This fonds include a rich correspondence and numerous files related to the various functions of Georges Schnek. We note files concerning shehitah, Soviet Jewry (1984-1987), the various Jewish communities in Belgium, the CRIF, summaries of the meetings of the Consistory, a file concerning the Institut Weizmann in Rehovot, etc. (See i.a. boxes 252 to 279, and 7 supplementary boxes received in October 2011)
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Arthur Schnek was born in Warsaw on 22 July 1924. His high school studies in the athenaeum of Schaarbeek were interrupted by the war. He fled with his parents to southwestern France and obtained his baccalauréat at the Lycée Ingres in Montauban. He joined the resistance, namely the Organisation juive de combat in Toulouse and later Grenoble (1942) and became one of its commanders. He was arrested but succeeded in escaping and continued fighting. His particular specialisation was forging identity papers and he helped many Jewish children cross the border to Switzerland. After the war he returned to Brussels where he obtained a degree in chemical engineering from the Institut Meurice in 1947. He went on to study in Paris where he obtained a PhD in biological chemistry (1951). In 1958-1959, he was admitted for postdoctoral studies at Caltech in Pasadena (California). A brilliant scientist, he was appointed head of research (1964-1970), lecturer (1970-1975), extraordinary professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the ULB (1974) and professor at the same faculty from 1984 to 1990. In addition he directed the haemoglobin study group of the laboratory of protein chemistry from 1981 onwards. He was a visiting professor at the University of Thessaloniki, at the University of Paris - Hôpital Kremlin-Bicêtre and at the Max Planck Institut in Munich. He published many scholarly articles and edited two works on haemoglobin, published by the ULB. Alongside his career as a scientist, he held many other social and associational functions. He taught history in the ORT schools, helped create the Union des Étudiants Juifs de France et de Belgique, the Comité Européen de l’Union Mondiale des Étudiants Juifs and the Fonds des Prêts d’Études (of which he became the president in 1970), founded the Centre des Jeunes (in 1957; he would also serve as its secretary-general) as well as the Institut Martin Buber (of which he became the vice president from 1974 onwards). He was the president of the Central Jewish Consistory of Belgium from 1982 until October 2000 and later became honorary president of this institution. Schnek was also the president of the Jewish Museum of Belgium from 1985 until 2012 and was a founding member and later honorary president as well as administrator of the Fondation de la Mémoire contemporaine. He served as the president of the Maison des Étudiants juifs (1991-2000) and the associations Les Émissions religieuses du Consistoire (1987-1996). From 1987 to 1997, he assumed the presidency of the Institut de la Mémoire audio-visuelle juive (IMAJ), an organisation of which he later became the vice president and honorary president. Georges Schnek also figured among the founders (and vice president) of the Joods Museum voor Deportatie en Verzet and was an administrator for the Conseil européen des Organisations synagogales. Throughout his entire life, he supported Israel: he founded the associations les Amis belges de l’Institut Weizmann, les Amis belges de l’Université hébraïque de Jérusalem, les Amis belges de l’Université hébraïque Ben Gourion and les Amis belges du Yad Vashem. Schnek was an active militant of Avodah. He was involved in the rescue of Soviet Jews and negotiated with the Catholic clergy in the framework of the establishment of the ‘Karmel’ in Auschwitz. He became the honorary president (and later vice president) of the Comité national de la Communauté juive de Belgique pour la Restitution (1980-1996) and was active within the Commission d’études des Biens juifs spoliés (the first ‘Buysse Commission’) as well as in the Fondation du Judaïsme de Belgique. Apart from his scientific career and his commitment to the Jewish community, Georges Schnek also loved music. He received the first prize of the Académie de Musique de Schaerbeek for violin, music theory and harmony in 1947. He played first violin in the Orchestre de Chambre of the ULB from 1972 until 1984. Schnek received many decorations and honours, including the Médaille de la Résistance française in 1945, Officer in the Order of Léopold in 1984, Grand Officer in the Order of Léopold II in 1994, the Médaille Civique de Ière classe in 1994, Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur in 1996 and lastly, he was made a Baron by royal decree on 4 July 2001. Georges Schnek died in Brussels on 18 March 2012. (Biographical file on G. Schnek, assembled following his death on 18 March 2012, Jewish Museum of Belgium; discussion with D. Dratwa (Jewish Museum of Belgium), May 2012)
- Access points: locations:
- Belgium
- Access points: persons/families:
- Schnek, Georges
- Access, restrictions:
- Access requires the authorisation of the archivist of the Jewish Museum of Belgium.
- Finding aids:
- There is a preliminary inventory of the Jewish Museum of Belgium.
- Yerusha Network member:
- State Archives of Belgium
