New Diplomats + Push

14 March 2019

King Philippe & Queen Mathilde met with the latest promotion of diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In May they will join a Belgian embassy or consulate general abroad.

In the evening, Queen Mathilde attended the opera "Push" at La Monnaie in Brussels, in the company of Simon Gronowski.

"Push" is a community project based on the life of Simon Gronowski, who as a young Jewish boy escaped from a nazi death transport in April 1943. Mr Gronowski was 11 years old when his mother pushed him off a train bound for the nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz, while the train was briefly halted by Belgian resistance fighters.

Mr Gronowski's mother & sister were killed in Auschwitz, his father died of a broken heart in 1945.

The Queen has met Mr Gronowski before, during a visit to the Dossin Memorial in Mechelen in 2018, as you can see here.