Walter Debrock
1911- 1996
Walter Debrock was a classical philologist, teacher, and active member of the Independence Front resistance movement. He survived several concentration camps and remained committed to antifascism and the liberal values of the VUB after the war.
Walter Debrock, born in 1911 in Ostend, was active in the Belgian antifascist and socialist movements. During his student years in Ghent, where he studied classical philology, he was a member of the liberal and Flemish-minded student association ’t Zal Wel Gaan, speaking out against far-right Flemish nationalism and fascism. His political engagement led him to the Socialist Youth Guard and later to the Independence Front during the Second World War. From 1934 onwards, Debrock worked as a secondary school teacher in various cities.
In 1940, while serving as a reserve naval officer, he was captured with other mobilised soldiers and taken to Soest (Germany), before being released in August of the same year. In Kortrijk, where he was teaching, he co-founded the local chapter of the Independence Front in the summer of 1941. After being betrayed, he was imprisoned from February to May 1942. The Independence Front then moved him and appointed him as an instructor for the provinces of Limburg, Antwerp, and East Flanders. Among other things, he helped found the Aalst chapter of the movement in May 1942.
His resistance activities led to his arrest in May 1943. He was imprisoned in the Begijnenstraat prison in Antwerp, where many political prisoners were held during the war. Debrock was later transferred to Camp Vught in the Netherlands, a penal camp where many Belgian resistance members were interned.
From there, he was deported to several concentration camps in Germany, including Dachau, Natzweiler-Struthof, Gross-Rosen, Nordhausen, Dora, and Belsen. He survived these camps, though the physical and psychological toll was immense. His experiences further strengthened his antifascist convictions, which remained a central part of his later political and public life—most notably as a prominent member of the Vermeylen Foundation and as chair of the board of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) from 1972 to 1980.
Sources:
- Van Campenhout, Nico, "Debrock, Walter." De Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse Beweging, https://encyclopedievlaamsebeweging.be/nl/debrock-walter. 
- Erkenningsdossier in het Algemeen Rijksarchief, (510-F1944)  Bestand F 1944, dossiers van de Gewapende Weerstand
- Interviews met Walter Debrock, VRT-archief en ongepubliceerd archiefonderzoek door An Rydant