Kurt Korona was nine years old when he came to the Israelitisches Waisenhaus Dinslaken (Dinslaken Jewish Orphanage) in September 1933. Before he lived with his parents and siblings Ruth, Leo and Alfred in Halberstadt, where his father, Felix Korona, supported his family by working as a tailor. After he died in 1932 at the age of thirtyfour, his wife Sofie was unable to provide for all the children and sent her eldest son to the orphanage.
Kurt experienced the morning of the pogrom, 10 November 1938, in Dinslaken. A few days later he escaped to Cologne with the other children. On 20 December 1938 Kurt Korona travelled to Belgium with the Kindertransport from the Dinslaken Orphanage. For the next two months he lived in the Villa Johanna in the seaside resort of Middelkerke near Ostend.
Kurt remained in Middelkerke until 20 February 1939, when he was accommodated in the Herbert Speyer home in Anderlecht. He did not live there for long. It was already in June 1939 that he moved to the Villa Jeanette which was run by Jonas Tiefenbrunner. Kurt stayed there until the German invasion in May 1940.
In July 1940, Jonas Tiefenbrunner and his pupils moved into a former old people’s home belonging to the Jewish community of Antwerp in Berchem. Kurt lived here until February 1941. He stayed with the Tiefenbrunners, too, when the home was moved for a short time to Schaerbeek, and in October 1941 to 34 Rue des Patriotes in Brussels. Kurt was particularly close to Ruth Tiefenbrunner (née Feldheim), whom he knew from Dinslaken.
In 1942 Kurt Korona left the orphanage in the Rue des Patriotes, as, at the age of 17, he had exceeded the age limit. He then lived again in Schaerbeek and earned his living working with furs.
In July 1942 he received a so-called Arbeitseinsatzbefehl (work summons) from the German military administration. The recipients of such a summons were told to follow it “unconditionally”‚ otherwise they would be arrested and transferred to a German concentration camp and their property confiscated. They were also ordered to bring their identity card, other important papers, food and work clothes.
Kurt Korona followed the order and reported to the Kazerne Dossin (Dossin Barracks) in Mechelen. Here he met Josef Axel-Thaler and Gertrud Babette Fränkel, who had had lived with him in Dinslaken. On 4 August 1942, they were deported to Auschwitz on the first train from Mechelen. Kurt received the personal number 46. There were no more signs of life from the three of them after the train arrived.
Kurt’s siblings Leo and Ruth Korona survived the Shoah, but his mother Sofie and his youngest brother Alfred were deported to the Warsaw Ghetto in April 1942. AP
Portrait of Kurt Korona: © Belgisches Staatsarchiv