Henri Reynders (Dom Bruno) (24 October 1903 – 26 October 1981) was a Belgian priest credited with saving 400 Jews during the Holocaust.
Early life and study
Henri Reynders was the fifth of eight children of an upper middle-class, deeply religious Catholic family. At the age of seventeen, having completed classical Greek and Latin studies at a Catholic school, he was accepted as a postulant at the Benedictine Mont-César Abbey (now known as Keizersberg Abbey) in Leuven, Belgium. After the successful completion of the noviciate in 1922, Henri Reynders was given the name of Dom Bruno.
The next three years were devoted to studying theology and philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven and at Saint Anselm Athenaeum in Rome. Dom Bruno took the Benedictine vows in Rome in 1925, binding himself to a monastic life at Mont-César and obedience to its abbot. Mont-César was known as an "intellectual abbey" and Dom Bruno was allowed to complete his studies concentrating on the writings of Saint Irenaeus, a second-century Father of the Church. He was ordained a priest in 1928 in Leuven, and the University of Leuven awarded Dom Bruno a Doctorate in Theology three years later.
Asked to lecture on theological dogma to the Mont-César community, Dom Bruno proved to be a non-conformist teacher, much to the dismay of his more conservative abbot. Typically, during one of his lectures, he presented for consideration the views of Martin Luther. His lecturing duties were cut short, the maverick monk was given a new assignment: mentor of the young son of the Duc de Guise, a claimant to the throne of France, living in Belgium. In recalling this unhappy episode years later, Dom Bruno laughingly exclaimed, "Me, an anarchist, teaching a prince!" Eventually, Dom Bruno resumed teaching at his monastery and contributed articles to publications devoted to ancient and medieval theology.
With the abbot's approval, he travelled extensively within and outside Belgium, visiting Catholic institutions to lecture and exchange views. During a stay in Hitler's Germany lecturing Catholic youths, he first witnessed what he would later characterize as the "shocking, revolting and nauseating" injustice and brutality of Nazi anti-Semitism.
During his studies in Rome, Dom Bruno met and became an enthusiastic supporter of the controversial Dom Lambert Beauduin, founder and prior of the Benedictine Amay Priory (later transferred to Chevetogne) Belgium. Dom Lambert promoted the unification of all Christian churches as well as liturgical reforms, ideas that were later favoured in Vatican II but were not fully accepted by the Catholic Church at the time. Consequently, Dom Bruno was advised to discontinue contacts with Chevetogne.
World War II
In the wake of the 1939 German invasion of Poland, which sparked World War II, Belgium mobilized and Dom Bruno was assigned to be the chaplain of the 41st Artillery Regiment. In May of the following year, German troops overran Belgium. In the course of the campaign, he sustained a leg injury and spent the next six months in prisoner-of-war camps at Wolfsburg and Doessel, Germany, where he continued to provide religious and moral support to fellow prisoners. Upon his release, Dom Bruno returned to Mont-César in German-occupied Belgium and resumed his teaching activities.
Compelled by his hostility toward the German occupation and Nazism, Dom Bruno made contact with elements of the Belgian Resistance and assisted in the escape of British pilots shot down over Belgian territory. In 1942, the Nazi authorities began rounding up Jews in Belgium for deportation to the death camps. On orders of his superior, Dom Bruno proceeded to the hamlet of Hodbomont to act as chaplain at a home for the blind. The priest soon became aware that the home was being used as a hiding place for a number of Jewish adults and children, brought there by a group of Christians opposed to the Nazi policies. The leader of the group was a prominent lawyer, Albert van den Berg, with whom Dom Bruno became a close collaborator. When it became unsafe to continue hiding Jews at this location, the home was closed and its occupants dispersed to other locations. Dom Bruno returned to Mont-César and dedicated himself exclusively to finding places of refuge for Jews.