Martial Van Schelle

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Martial Van Schelle (1923)

Martial Albert Fowler "Ti" Van Schelle (born July 6, 1899 in Merksplas , † March 15, 1943 in Fort Breendonk ) was a Belgian businessman and athlete who was active in various sports. In 1943 he was arrested and executed by the Gestapo .

Family and youth

Martial Van Schelle, known as "Ti", was born on the Diepte estate near Merksplas as the only child of a wealthy family. His father, Albert Jozef Karel Van Schelle, was a lawyer and philanthropist from Belgium, and his mother, Annie-Marwin Fowler-Protvoth, was from Springfield , United States . Albert Van Schelle was a member of the leadership of the Red Cross in Belgium and met his future, much younger wife in Cuba , who worked there as a nurse during the Spanish-American War .

During Van Schelle's childhood and adolescence, parents were often absent. The mother raised chickens, the father horses , and both traveled frequently to breeding shows. He was looked after by a governess and enjoyed a lot of freedom. He drove to school in a cart, in front of which he hitched a pig or a donkey. He later accompanied his mother on her travels, which also led to the USA, where he lived temporarily with his mother's family. It was there when the First World War broke out. His mother decided to travel back to Belgium without her son. She was on the Lusitania when the ship was torpedoed and sunk on May 7, 1915 by a submarine of the German Imperial Navy off the south coast of Ireland . Van Schelle's mother survived the ship's sinking and boarded the Arabic II to return to the United States. This ship was also torpedoed by the Germans, but Annie Van Schelle again survived this second ship sinking in August 1915. In October, she arrived back in the USA by another passage, where she tried to help Belgium with food and clothing. In February 1917 she died as a result of her injuries from the shipwrecks.

In April 1917, Martial Van Schelle volunteered for the United States Army to fight in Europe. He was among the first US soldiers to arrive in France and stayed on the front lines for the remainder of the war. At the end of the war he returned to his parents' house in Merksplas, where his father and friends initially did not recognize him.

Sports entrepreneurs and athletes

In 1919 Martial Van Schelle moved to Brussels , where he did his Belgian military service. At the cadet school he gave the future King Leopold III. Swimming lessons. In 1924 he opened the Van Schelle Sports sports shop . He built Belgium's first ice rink, which could also be used as an outdoor pool in summer. He had another ice rink built next to the Royal Palace on behalf of King Leopold II . He commissioned the construction of further ice rinks and swimming pools all over Belgium, which made speed skating popular again, and organized ice galas (with Sonja Henie ) and ice hockey tournaments . With financial support from his American grandmother, he built up a production line for ice skates . He regularly provided the football team in his hometown, for which he had played as a youth, with free equipment.

Van Schelle was active in various sports himself. Between 1920 and 1928 he was eight times Belgian champion in freestyle swimming ; he started for the Royal Brussels Poseidon . In total he is said to have won 16 Belgian swimming titles. He also played water polo and went speed skating. He twice took part in the Gordon Bennett Cup ballooning competition , in 1934 together with the pilot Philippe Quersin , with whom he landed in Russia from Warsaw . He was also one of the first basketball players in Belgium. He competed four times in the Olympic Games: in 1920 , 1924 and 1928 as a swimmer and in 1936 in the two-man and four-man bobsleigh. In 1936 he reached in the four-man bobsleigh ( Max Houben , Louis De Ridder , Paul Graeff ) with fifth place, his best result at the Olympic Games.

Second World War

With the beginning of the Second World War , Van Schelle spied against the German occupation, organized an escape route for refugees to Great Britain and ran an anti-German black channel . On January 15, 1943, the day before he was about to leave for Portugal , he was arrested by the Gestapo and taken to Fort Breendonk. After two months of torture, he and nine other men were executed by shooting on March 15, 1943. Like other executed people, he is buried in the honor park of the National Schietbaan in Brussels.

literature

  • Armand Huet: Het wondbaren leven van Martial Van Schelle (1899-1943) . Merksplas 2012 (first 1976).

Web links

Commons : Martial Van Schelle  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Luk Van Bouwel: De family "Van Schelle". Europeana 1914–1918, accessed September 1, 2014 (Dutch).
  2. ↑ David Schulson Autographs Catalog 150. (PDF) (No longer available online.) Unknown, January 2012, archived from the original on September 3, 2014 ; accessed on September 2, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Other sources indicate that the parents met in the Transvaal , where Albert Van Schelle is said to have been in captivity for four years. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.schulsonautographs.com
  3. ↑ De Diepte en de family Van Schelle. (PDF) Gouwtijdingen, July 2012, pp. 51–52 , accessed on September 2, 2014 .
  4. ↑ The Museum voor Letteren en Manuscripts is now located in the former premises of the shop .
  5. ↑ a b c d Leen Huet: Mijn Belgie . 2009. o. P.
personal data
SURNAME Van Schelle, Martial
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Van Schelle, Martial Albert Fowler (full name); Van Schelle, Ti (short name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian athlete
DATE OF BIRTH July 6, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Merksplas
DATE OF DEATH January 15, 1943
Place of death Fort Beerendonk