Bert Van Hoorick (31 January 1915 – 19 February 2000) was a Belgian politician and writer. He was a member of the Belgian parliament from 1946 up to 1949 and from 1958 until 1976. When 18 years old, he joined the Belgian socialist party and also the Socialist Anti-War Lique and in the late thirties the

Communist Party of Belgium The Communist Party of Belgium (, , KPB; , , PCB) was a political party in Belgium from 1921 to 1989. The youth wing of KPB/PCB was known as the Communist Youth of Belgium. The party published a newspaper known as ''Le Drapeau Rouge'' in French ...

, of which he became a leading member. During the second world war Van Hoorick became a member of the resistance. He was apprehended by the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

s in January 1943 and imprisoned in the

Nazi concentration camps From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps (), including subcamp (SS), subcamps on its own territory and in parts of German-occupied Europe. The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately af ...

Breendonk Breendonk is a village in the municipality of Puurs-Sint-Amands in the province of Antwerp, Belgium, with a population of 3,000, halfway between Brussels and Antwerp. History Its name stems from the medieval ''Bredene Dunc,'' which translates as ...

and

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (Old Reich) territori ...

. After the war he became chief editor of ''De Rode Vaan'', the journal of the Belgian communist party. In 1946 he was elected to the municipal council of Aalst and to the Belgian parliament. After the events of the

Hungarian Revolution of 1956 The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (23 October – 4 November 1956; ), also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was an attempted countrywide revolution against the government of the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989) and the policies caused by ...

, he broke with the communist party and in January 1957 he became a member of the Belgian socialist party. In 1958, he became a member of parliament for the socialist party, and he held this mandate until 1976. From 1971 up to 1974 he was also secretary of the parliament.

Awards

* 1983 –

Arkprijs van het Vrije Woord The Arkprijs van het Vrije Woord (Ark Prize of the Free Word) is a symbolic award created in 1951 by Herman Teirlinck and the editorial team of the ''Nieuw Vlaams Tijdschrift'' (New Flemish magazine) to counteract ideologically driven restrictions ...

* 1991 – Gouden Erepenning van het Vlaams Parlement

Bibliography

* ''In tegenstroom''. Herinneringen 1919–1956

Sources

Bert Van Hoorick
1915 births 2000 deaths Flemish politicians Flemish writers Belgian communists Breendonk prison camp survivors Buchenwald concentration camp survivors People from Aalst, Belgium {{Flanders-politician-stub