The Secret Room

May 10, 1940. Germany invades Belgium. 18 days later, the Belgian army surrenders and the entire territory is occupied. After just a few months, Frans Verlinden and his wife Irma Van Poyer, my grandparents, commit their first act of resistance: they hide a man wanted by the Germans in their house. De Geheime Kamer tells their story. The house is quite large and has many rooms. It is a butcher's shop combined with a taproom, a large living area, and a spacious cellar. In that cellar, quite a few more people will hide during the course of the war years. But after several raids by the Germans, the cellar is no longer safe and a room on the first floor is prepared. It becomes the ‘secret room’. Frans and Irma have 4 children, the eldest is 22 when the war breaks out, the youngest 14. They all do their bit in the resistance: passing on information and taking in and guiding refugees. The eldest daughter, Maria, my mother, marries in December 1941 and barely 6 months later she is arrested. A few weeks earlier, Georges Lecron, the leader of the resistance group in Mechelen that the family is affiliated with, was arrested. All the people from his address book are arrested one by one. Many of them do not survive… 'De Geheime Kamer' tells the story of the resistance past of my grandparents and my mother during the Tweede Wereldoorlog. They lived in Sint-Katelijne-Waver (Elzestraat). It may be the story of my family, but in the performance itself that is broadened, it is the story of more than 150,000 people who offered resistance in one way or another. It is about war and peace, about courage (and not realizing at the time how dangerous it was to offer resistance), about why people did it. They were often simple folk who joined the resistance, like my grandparents and my mother. Simple in the sense of: these were not born heroes, no adventurers, but people like you and me. In this case: the village butcher and his family. Verteller Jan Vanlangendock Muzikanten Elly Aerden and Jan Van Rossem