Against All Odds

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Kurt Pick was born in 1912, the only child of Austrian Jewish parents. In 1938, he had to leave his home in Vienna, fleeing the Nazi persecution of the Jews. He was captured but escaped and succeeded in being smuggled into Brussels, where he existed in fear, freezing cold and near starvation. In the Summer of 1939 he was appointed Administrator of a camp for Jewish refugee families at Marneffe near Brussels, becoming their official link with the outside world. Then Germany invaded Belgium, the 600 residents were evacuated and they joined the immense tide of refugee clogging the roads. Kurt survived the air attacks to reach Avesnes, but with the Germans now in occupation, Kurt snatched the first opportunity to leave Brussels, taking the job of baker at a boarding school in the Condroz. He soon discovered this was sheltering many Jews and was used as a center for the Resistance. After the Germans raided the school in 1943, Kurt was permanently on the run until at last, in September 1944, the Americans arrived to liberate Liège and the Germans were seen to be retreating. Almost all Kurt's family perished. It is a tribute to his courage that he survives without bitterness, his story touched with warmth and humor, his integrity intact.