Mechelen Sunday June 23 - Tribute to Johny Vosté. The Malinois with Congolese roots was a resistance hero who saved many lives in the Dachau concentration camp during the Second World War. Johny was barely three years old when his father took him from Congo to Mechelen. In 1941, when Johny was seventeen years old, he joined the resistance but was betrayed and through several German prisons he ended up in the Dachau concentration camp in 1942. Due to his intelligence and language skills he survived and was even able to steal medicine for sick fellow prisoners.

After Johny returned to Belgium he married, but he and his wife Rosa did not want children for fear of racism. “Today we commemorate him as a resistance fighter of color, but his history and life story are inspiring and illustrative of the development of Mechelen into a city where everyone, regardless of color and origin, should be able to be themselves,” says Mayor Bart Somers.