Birthplace of Jacques Brel

Jacques Brel (Jacques Romain Georges Brel) was born at this address, Avenue du Diamant 138, 1030 Schaerbeek, on April 8, 1929.

For those who do not know Jacques Brel: he was (according to the viewers of the French-speaking national television (RTBf) in 2005) the greatest Belgian of all time.

Brel was an incredible character who continues to shock and move people, even 30 years after his death...

The plaque at his birthplace says: ‘Il a chanté le plat pays, les vieux, la tendresse, l’amour debout il a vécu sa vie et le poète vit encore’ ('He sang of the flat country, the old, tenderness, love. He lived his life upright and the poet still lives…')

Brel was born into a Catholic Flemish entrepreneurial family and was not particularly fond of school from a young age – but he excelled in French lessons.

He performs amateur theater in the Catholic company ‘Franche Cordée’, but his father wants him – against his will – to work in the family cardboard factory.

He thinks about what he really wants to do: raise chickens, become a shoemaker, or be a singer. He chooses the third option. He writes everywhere and all the time. As a lover of classical music, he composes his first tunes on the piano at home and on his guitar.

On June 1, 1950, he marries Thérèse Michielsen, ‘Miche’, whom he met in ‘Franche Cordée’. On December 6, 1951, their first daughter, Chantal, is born, followed by France on July 12, 1953.

In 1955, the Brel family leaves Brussels and moves to Paris, where their third daughter, Isabelle, is born in August 1958...

The further journey of Jacques Brel is very well-known: from the Olympia in Paris, to the theater, to film, and eventually to the Marquesas Islands.

He ultimately died in Bobigny (Paris) of lung cancer, but was buried on his beloved 'Marquesas' at the cemetery of Atuona on Hiva Oa…

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