The new stumbling stones are spread across eight locations in Blankenberge and commemorate people who were deported or murdered during the Second World War. Among them also Jan Guilini and his wife Aline Cambier, who run a small hotel on the Zeedijk.
Jan Guilini was not only a successful swimmer, but also active in the resistance. In 1942 he was arrested by the German occupiers. Two years later he was beheaded as a political prisoner. “It is a gruesome death,” says granddaughter Annick Guilini. “During my research I discovered that not only he, but also his entire team of fourteen people were beheaded on the same day. That still happened in the Second World War, not just in the Middle Ages.”
His son Carlos was only two years old when his father was taken away. “On my birthday, August 29, 1942, my mother was also deported. We were alone with three children,” he says. “It is high time that more attention is paid to the past. Many people no longer know who Jan Guilini was.”
Aline Cambier survived the war after a long journey through various prisons and camps, and was liberated by the Americans in April 1945.