Adolf Bernhard Bader, called Adi, was born in Cologne in February 1931, the third son of Friedrich and Sara Bader, née Sibirski. His mother died just a few weeks after his birth, so he spent the first years of his life in the Jewish children’s home in Lützowstrasse. In 1934 his father married Regine Sibirski, the sister of his deceased wife. Adi returned to his parents’ apartment, where he lived with his older brothers Martin and Georg and his half-brother Kurt.
After the National Socialists came to power, the Bader family’s living conditions deteriorated. The parents, therefore, made an effort to leave together for the United States. When all attempts failed, they decided to find a way for their older sons to escape. In December 1939, Martin was able to leave for Palestine with the Youth Aliyah (a Jewish organisation which enabled children and young people to immigrate to Palestine). Several months earlier, Adi and Georg had already been smuggled from Duisburg to Antwerp on a cargo ship.
In Belgium, Adi was placed in a foster family, through contacts of his uncle Max. Maria Lommers (1903-1961) accepted the Jewish boy into her family but kept his identity secret. Even today, Adi associates the years of his childhood spent there with the feeling of being at home. For almost three years he lived in the village Kapellen and attended the Gemeentelijke Lagere Jongenschool (Municipal Elementary School for Boys).
When the German occupation authorities became aware of Adi’s Jewish identity, Maria Lommers, with a heavy heart, placed her foster son in the care of the Centraal Beheer voor Joodsche Weldadigheid en Maatschappelijk Hulpbetoon (the Central Management for Jewish Charity and Social Assistance, which was the umbrella organisation of the Jewish Welfare Organisations in Antwerp.)
At the beginning of my time with Moe, there must have been an agreement about her payment. But then she stopped receiving any more payments. Nevertheless, she kept me with her. [...] One day, one of my clogs/wooden shoes broke in two. Moe was worried about how to finance new shoes. [...] I then wrote to my father asking for money. The answer I received was the last sign of life from him. He told me that he could not help me at the moment because he was in prison in Müngersdorf near Cologne. It was only after the war that I learnt that this was the deportation camp in Cologne. Unfortunately, I no longer have this card that my father sent me then.
(Excerpt from “Kölsche Jonge”)
From September 1942 Adi lived together with 30 girls and boys from Germany and Austria in a children’s home in Schaarbeek. The Orphelinat Israelite de Bruxelles (Jewish Orphanage of Brussels) was run by Jonas Tiefenbrunner and his wife Ruth, née Feldheim, who both fled Germany in 1938. After half a year, Adi moved to the children’s home in Wezembeek-Oppem under the direction of Marie Albert. Both homes were administered by the compulsory organization Association des Juifs en Belgique (Association of Jews in Belgium, AJB). The children thus had the constant threat of arrest and deportation.
Adi Bader becomes Jean Brinant
When it became known in mid-1944 that there was to be a raid of the children’s home at any moment, the resistance organisation Comité de Défense des Juifs (Jewish Defense Committee, CDJ) and L’Œuvre Nationale de l’Enfance (The National Children’s Fund, ONE) arranged for the children to go into hiding. The boys and girls were given new identities that they had to learn by heart. Adi Bader became Jean Brinant. Together with 21 other children he went into hiding in the monastery Notre Dame de Bethléhem in Herent. He was there for the liberation on 4 September 1944.
Adi never saw his parents or two of his brothers again. His father, his stepmother and his little half-brother Kurt were deported to Malyj Trostenez near Minsk and murdered. His brother Georg was arrested on 21 September 1942 during a raid on a children’s home in Antwerp. Five days later, he was deported with the 11th Transport from Mechelen to Auschwitz and murdered there.
After liberation, Adi Bader returned to the children’s home in Wezembeek, where almost all the hidden children gradually reappeared. While some children were picked up by family members, Adi remained uncertain about the fate of his family for a long time. At the end of 1945 he finally received his first sign of life: a telegram from Tel Aviv from his eldest brother Martin. A few weeks later Adi followed his brother to Palestine. He completed an apprenticeship as a precision mechanic and did his military service after the foundation of the State of Israel.
In 1956 Adi Bader returned to Europe to visit his foster mother in Belgium and his aunt Antoinette Bader in Switzerland as well as his native city Cologne. There he met his future wife Edith, with whom he started a family in 1959. Adi Bader attended the exhibition opening in Cologne in November 2019. He died on 19 February 2023. AS
Portrait of Adi Bader © Ruth Bader