Joseph André

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Joseph André (14 March 1908 – 1 June 1973) was a

Early life

After two years (1926–28) with the Jesuits where he could not stay because of his frail health and weak contact with his religion, he entered the seminary of Namur. Ordained priest in 1936, he was teacher in a high school (Floreffe) for a few years before being appointed curate at the parish of St Jean-Baptiste (Namur).

Shelter for Jewish children

In 1941, with Belgium under German occupation, the parish youth center (located exactly next to the Gestapo 'Kommandantur' of Namur) became the hub of a vast clandestine organization under his leadership, aiming to save Jewish children from deportation and certain death. It was a transit house where children were sheltered - sometime more than 20 together - for as few days as possible before being entrusted to religious institutions or rural families where they could remain in hiding. To feed them, Fr André and his collaborators went about the country, from farm to farm, begging for food, hams, bread, cheese, and on the look out for more shelters for his protégés. With a personal love for Jews and a profound respect for religious freedom, Father André never tried to convert or baptize the children. Though he was occasionally suspected by the Gestapo, and several times interrogated, his center and organization were never uncovered and remained active till the end of the war.

Friend of Israel

After the war he carried out social and charitable activities in connection with the Service social des Juifs of Belgium. Living very poorly by choice, he had an evangelical love for the marginalized and the lost. As