Belgium / Mechelen

Kazerne Dossin

The former Dossin military casern in Mechelen (Flanders) were used during the German occupation of Belgium as a collection camp for Jews prior to their deportation. There has been a memorial and a museum in Mechelen since May 1995.

History

In May 1940, the German Wehrmacht occupied Belgium and a military administration was established. Special offices were set up in order to deal with the »Jewish question«. These offices - the Security Police and the Security Service (Sipo-SD) - followed orders issued by the Reich Main Security Office in Berlin. There, Adolf Eichmann led Office IV B 4 which coordinated Germany's so-called Jewish policy and later the implementation of the »final solution of the Jewish question«. Between 1941 and 1943, Kurt Asche was responsible for Jewish affairs at the Sipo-SD in Brussels, after which he was succeeded by Fritz Erdmann. Like in other European countries, decrees issued by the German military administration entailed the suppression and exclusion of the Belgian Jews. Between October 1940 and September 1943, the occupiers issued 18 anti-Jewish decrees with the aim of preparing the upcoming deportation and murder of the Jews.
From July 1942 on, the SS used the old Dossin casern in Mechelen (Flanders) as the central collection camp for Jews. On August 4, 1942, the first transport of Jews left Mechelen for Auschwitz-Birkenau. At first, only foreign Jews were affected by the deportations, but beginning September 1943, Jews with Belgian citizenship were also arrested. Until Belgium's liberation, a total of 24,916 Jews and 353 Roma and Sinti were deported from the Mechelen collection camp to concentration camps in the East. Of those, fewer than five per cent survived. A few Jews could go into hiding, others joined the resistance movement.

Mechelen, 2003, Commemorative plaque outside the casern building, Joods Museum van Deportatie en Verzet

Mechelen, 2010, View of the Dossin-casern, Adrien Beauduin

Victims

The museum commemorates the 24,916 Jews and 351 Sinti and Roma who were deported from the Mechelen collection camp to concentration camps in the east. Only about five per cent of them survived.

Neutral Belgium was attacked in May 1940 and was subsequently governed by a German military administration. The German-speaking districts of Eupen and Malmedy in the east of the country were incorporated into the Third Reich. At the time, there were around 66,000 Jews in Belgium, including many refugees. The first anti-Jewish laws were enacted in October 1940. In 1942, the occupying power’s policy of persecution and expropriation culminated in preparations for systematic deportation. As only a few of the Jews reported for their alleged forced labour deployment the SS and police carried out raids to capture them. Those arrested were sent to the Mechelen transit camp before being deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp, where they were murdered on arrival. A total of around 25,000 Jews and over 350 Roma from Belgium died as a result of deportation. From September 1940, the Breendonk fort near Antwerp served as a prison and an assembly and transit camp. Above all political opponents of the Nazi occupation were transported from here to the German concentration camps. At the end of 1944 the Ardennes Offensive, also known as the Battle of the Bulge, resulted in widespread destruction and many civilian casualties as German troops tried in vain to hold back the Allies in south-east Belgium (around Liège and Malmedy), who had already reached Aachen. Around 90,000 Belgians fell victim to the war and occupation. The majority of the Jewish population survived thanks to the help of non-Jewish Belgians. The culture of remembrance in Belgium was and continues to be divided in line with the political structure of the country. In French-speaking Wallonia, exaggerated accounts of the resistance prevailed for a long time, along with the one-sided view that people in Flanders had been collaborators. By contrast, in Flanders many glossed over the issue of collaboration under the German occupation, viewing this in terms of a fight for the Flemish nation in the face of persecution from the Belgian state. The persecution of the Jews was repressed and the victims only commemorated by the Jewish community. Since the 1980s, however, Belgian sites of memory have begun to acknowledge the collaboration on the part of both Flanders and Wallonia and to document the oppression as well as the resistance during the war. With the inauguration of the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance in Mechelen (Flanders) in 1995 it became clear that the experiences of both Jewish and non-Jewish Belgians in the camps could provide a bridge between different memories. In today’s Belgium the range of distinct memorial sites such as the Breedonk Fort National Memorial to the Belgian resistance and the museum at Mechelen are all considered legitimate aspects of the culture of remembrance.

Remembrance

After the war, the casern was returned to the Belgian state and the Belgian Army established a school for the Administration of the Armed Forces there. At the end of the 1970s, the army left the barracks and apartments were built on the site. At the same time, there were calls for setting up a museum in the former casern, most prominently lobbied for by the »Vereniging voor Joodse Weggevoerden in België« (English: »Association of Jewish Deportees in Belgium«) and the »Centraal Israelitisch Consistorie van Belgie« (English: »Central Israelite Consistory of Belgium«). Only in the 1990s could the project be put into life. In May 1995, the Belgian king inaugurated the new museum.
In 2012, a new museum building and a new permanent exhibition were inaugurated across the street from the casern. The rooms which held the museum until then were transformed into a memorial. The restructuring of the museum was initiated by the Flemish government. The design for the new building in form of a white monolith is a work by bOb Van Reeth of AWG Architecten.

Mechelen, 2012, View of the memorial in the former casern, Christophe Ketels

Mechelen, 2012, New museum building, Christophe Ketels

Possibilities

Permanent exhibition, library, archive, tracing service

Open

Memorial, Nuseum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 9 a.m. to 5. p.m.
Saturday and Sunday 9.30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Closed on Wednesday, Christmas, New Year's Eve and on Jewish holidays

Contact

https://www.kazernedossin.eu

info@kazernedossin.eu

+32 (0)15 290660

Mechelen, 2012, View of the permanent exhibition, Christophe Ketels

Mechelen, Holocaust Memorial »15 August 1942, Lange Kievitstraat, Antwerp« by the artist Philip Aguirre y Otegui, Antwerp 2012 photo © Koen de Waal 2012

Mechelen, 1942, Inner courtyard of the Dossin casern immediately before a deportation, Joods Museum van Deportatie en Verzet

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