By the spring of 1940, between 56,000 and 65,000 Jews lived in Belgium. There was a small long-established Jewish population, yet most Jewish men and women living in Belgium in 1933 had only come to live there after the First World War.
The German occupiers began to impose anti-Jewish measures in autumn 1940, about half a year after the beginning of the occupation. Their first aim was to deprive the Jewish population of its economic livelihood and to exclude them from social life. This included bans on occupations and businesses as well as prohibiting Jewish children from attending state schools. In addition, all Jews had to register as Jews in their communities. Introduced in July 1941, this measure, which meant stamping the stigmatizing “Juif/Jood” (“Jew”) in red onto identity cards, and also the imposition of a curfew which only applied to Jews, served as preparation for deportation.
In May 1942, the German occupying forces decreed that all Jews had to wear a visible yellow six-pointed star with a black “J” printed on it. The decree on forced labour for Jewish workers announced on the same day was immediately implemented. By September 1942, about 2,300 Jewish men were deported to France and forced to build the so-called Atlantic Wall by the Organisation Todt (a paramilitary construction army headed by Fritz Todt). Most of them were later deported from there to Auschwitz.
From Mechelen to Auschwitz
From the summer of 1942 onwards, the military administration sent personal requests to all Jews living in Belgium to report for work in Mechelen. The old barracks there was used by the Germans as a tran- sit camp from 27 July 1942. It was constantly overcrowded, and the conditions were catastrophic. People usually stayed there for only a few days before being deported to Auschwitz. On 4 August 1942, the first deportation train set off with 998 people on board. Only seven of them survived.
As fewer and fewer people responded to the requests sent to them, the military administration changed its strategy and arrested Jewish people in large raids. Jews were also arrested at the offices issuing food stamps or after denunciations by secret informers.
On 31 July 1944, about a month before the liberation of Belgium by the Americans, 563 people were deported to Auschwitz with the last deportation train.
The historian Insa Meinen has concluded that in total 24,906 people were deported from Mechelen to Auschwitz. ÄW
