14 February 2007
Belgian authorities collaborated in the deportation of Jews during World War II and the state's actions at the time were "unworthy of a democracy", according to a government-commissioned study released in Brussels on Tuesday. "The Belgian state adopted a docile attitude in some very diverse but crucial domains by a collaboration unworthy of a democracy with a policy that was disastrous for the Jewish population," the study says. Rudi Van Doorslaer, head of the CEGES war documentation study center which carried out the study, told the Belgian parliament: "The step from passive to active collaboration was quickly achieved." The 1,100-page report was compiled by historians at the request of the Belgian government. The Senate, the upper house of parliament, has been tasked with drawing political conclusions based on the document.
After the Nazi invasion in May 1940, the Belgian government fled to Britain, but issued instructions authorizing civil servants who stayed to work with the Nazis to keep services running and prevent the economic breakdown that had occurred during the German occupation during World War I. At first Jewish citizens had to be registered, then they were obliged to wear yellow stars, then schools and hospitals were segregated. Raids soon rounded up Jews in Belgian cities and they were deported to Nazi concentration camps.
The CEGES study says that police in the city of Antwerp also arbitrarily arrested 1,243 people and handed them over to the German occupiers for possible deportation. It pointed out that the administration was not sanctioned after the war. Although some cities refused to collaborate, others continued helping with the deportations that sent thousands to their deaths. Even the exile government in London "never let it be known that policies had to be adapted and that the behavior of leading civil servants and magistrates was unconstitutional and democratically reprehensible," the study states.
Of the estimated 56,000 Jews who lived in Belgium at the beginning of World War II, around 25,000 were deported to Auschwitz, and only an estimated 1,200 survived the Holocaust. Between 2001 and 2006, Belgian authorities received around 6,000 demands for compensation, of which 4,140 were accepted, according to government figures.
