Zosine Lafili - Based on research by Kamiel Mertens

Written by: Jane Knox-Kiepura


All I knew about Zosine Lafili up until this year was that there was a Mr. and Mrs. Verstraeten of No. 80 Kwakkelstraat (now this house is No. 84) Turnhout who had hidden airmen in 1944. This I knew from an undated photograph of the couple in the family album and from my father’s recollections written fifty years later. Here he described her as being “in her late 30s or early 40s. She was quite tall and on the thin side. Her husband was a soldier in the Belgian army and had been made a prisoner of war. A city woman, she was intelligent, kind and had a good sense of humour. She was a fluent French speaker, although Turnhout was very much a Flemish town...”

Kamiel Mertens decided to leave no stone unturned in his quest to find out what had become of Mrs. Verstraeten. He left a flyer in over 250 letter boxes on Kwakkelstraat (street) in the hope that somebody might have some recollection. A week later he was rewarded with a phone call from Mrs. Verstraeten’s former neighbour. The neighbour had been a teenager in 1944 and remembers how she would see young airmen arriving through the back doors (“my nephews” according to Mrs. Verstraeten). She recognized the back of the house from the picture. With the knowledge this was the correct person and place - Kamiel was able to research the archives of the Town of Turnhout. He eventually found her full name – Zosine Emilienne Verstraeten-Lafili. Kamiel now got to work in all the historic and post war archives, document centres and Fund for Social Security (the actual name of an older institution “Ministerie van Wederopbouw” - a special Fund relating to the Resistance Movement established immediately after the war to reimburse and give official status as “members of the armed resistance” for the costs incurred for shelter, food, medical supplies, clothes, documentation, and transportation for the individuals they had rescued.


Zosine Lafilie
Zosine Emilienne Lafili was born in Leuven on 17th November 1902 to Jean-Gustave Lafili and Marie-Louise Willems. On July 22 1927 she married François Verstraeten (a millitary professional) in Leuven. We have not established yet when they moved to Turnhout. By May of 1940 Corporal Verstraeten, a soldier in the Belgian Army, was made a POW.

It would appear from the records, that Mrs. Verstraeten-Lafili was a housekeeper for a Turnhout family active in the resistance. They had rescued an airman (Kleinman) and asked her to hide him at her home in Kwakkelstraat 80. Upon further research it is undoubtedly the same Theodore Kleinman from the 349th Squadron who joined the 100th Group and who stated after his return “the bail-out occurred about 10 miles SSE of Turnhout, Belgium and continues: “After contacting an underground unit I was placed in a house in Turnhout…..” (see notes available on web).

There is a listing that from February 4th 1944 till September 20th 1944 Zosine Verstraeten-Lafili hid at least twelve allied pilots and airmen. These included Lt T. Kleinman USA, Sgt. W. Lynch UK, F/O John Maunsell UK, Fl Lt E Mallet - Canada, F/S Reg Brookes UK, F/S Peter Knox Australia, Captain Griffith USA Sgt Daniel M. Cargill USA, F/S Arthur Rae, Scotland UK, F/S Philip Tweedy, F/Sgt Roy Reading UK, Sgt Roy Martin USA.

Mrs. Lafili worked with her brother – Jules Theodore Lafili and most probably worked with the following Members of the Resistance in Belgium. Mrs. Zosine Lafili acted as the local Chief of the Resistance Group M.N.B Mouvement Nationale Belge

R. Degroot – living in Lindeplein 2 at Moerbeke-Waas (village in East Flanders)
Leon Detaille - Otterstraat in Turnhout
R. Donders (he witnessed falsified documents)
Mr. De Meyer – Victoriestraat 102 Brussels (picked up falsified documents)
Albertus Gever - Alf. Pietersstraat 116 in Ostend (Albertus & his brother Ferdinand both from Mol)
Ferdinand Gever - lived in Mol by the train station
Mr. Leemans and Mrs. Jeanne Leemans-Schlesser – living in Geel
Mr. Martin – Ravelsche Steenweg in Ravels
Renaerts who searched for fallen airmen - a schoolteacher living in Retie
The Sterckx-Heyns family in Geel, including daughter Dimpna and son Jules – see separate article
Jacques van Bael - arrested by the Germans, locked up in the Camp of Flossenburg Germany where he died on April 25th 1945.
Josef Verstuyft - Steenweg op Beerse 3 in Merksplas
(above information obtained by Kamiel Mertens through different records dating back to 1950).
Both Tweedy and Rae had been helped by the Nevelsteen Family – at Geel-Punt (Antwerpseweg)
Mr. Frans Nevelsteen and his wife Mrs. Dimphna D’Joos (both were arrested along with their son Karel and sent to KZ in Germany. Father and son died in the KZ Dora (Mittelbau-Werke V1 and V2) (per Kamiel Mertens Research).
Tweedy and Rae were also looked after by Louis S’Jegers and Marcel and Madeleine Peeters-Driessen of Geel.

There is written testimony by Lt Theodore Kleinman in the archives in Belgium praising her courage and intellect and documents “if anybody in Belgium should receive a medal, it must be Zosine LAFILI”. He would know as he spent seven weeks at the home in Kwakkelstraat. I am sure there is plenty more to say about the courage and heroism of Zosine Lafili and those whose lives she saved at the peril of her own - this is the information we have available as of June 18, 2006. It also gives a glimpse of those others, including her brother Jules Theodore Lafili who did so much to save so many. Jane Knox-Kiepura – June 2006 Research contributed by Kamiel Mertens 2005-2006

Brussels-Mol-Postel Weekend, September 2006
by Edmund Knox 

You wouldn’t have missed the crewmen from the plane
That came down near the Bladel Woods, where we stood,
As it would have stretched the skills even of Jane
And Kamiel to raise those taken, brave and good.
What you’d have missed, though, was a festival of thanks
To Alfons who found our father in a field
And, with Neels and Zosine, braving Nazi tanks,
Led him to friends like Dimpna, sworn not to yield;
Nor heard Paul Rotthier, the Lord Mayor of Mol
Say that valour such as Captain Davis showed,
For the freedom of others, sometimes has a high toll,
Leaving with us, who come after, a huge debt owed.
Whether there or not, we must forever strive
To keep the flame of these heroes’ deeds alive.
press_release_roy
Contact Us | Site Map