Monument to the Deported Citizens of Antwerp

Monument voor de gedeporteerde Antwerpse Burgers

In 1997, a monument in honour of the citizens of Antwerp who were deported under German occupation during World War II was set up in the city's Jewish quarter.

History

There were about 25,000 Jews residing in Antwerp shortly before the German invasion in May 1940 - a majority of them were immigrants and refugees. During the first months of occupation, they remained relatively undisturbed, until October 1941, when the occupying forced introduced first anti-Jewish measures. Jews with Belgian citizenship, only about 8 per cent of those living there, were initially represented by the Belgian administration, giving them better protection for the time being. The only anti-Jewish pogroms to take place in Belgium occurred in Antwerp on April 10 and 14, 1941. Flemish nationalists first destroyed Jewish shops and then broke into two synagogues and a rabbi's house, destroying religious objects and furniture. In the summer of 1941, Jewish shops and businesses were expropriated. Towards the end of that year, the German administration ordered the establishment of the »Association des Juifs en Belgique« (English: Association of Jews in Belgium), which was to encompass all Jews. From May 1942 on, Jews were forced to wear the yellow star. Soon after, Security Police organised the first deportations to concentration camps in the east and deployed forced labour details to France. Many Jews refused their so-called labour deployment. As a result, the SS - assisted by Belgian police and collaborators - organised several raids in Antwerp in August and September 1942, during which non-Belgian Jews were arrested and deported. Jews with Belgian citizenship were arrested in the night of September 3, 1943. The Jews of Antwerp were deported to the Mechelen collection camp. Most transports from there were headed for Auschwitz, where the SS murdered most of the deportees. It is estimated that 3,300 Jews managed to go into hiding in Antwerp and surrounding areas. Many played an active role in the resistance movement.

Antwerp, 1941, Street scene during the pogrom of April 14, Joods Museum van Deportatie en Verzet

Antwerp, 2010, View of the monument, Stiftung Denkmal, Adrien Beauduin

Victims

The SS and the Gestapo deported a total of 24,916 Jews and about 350 Sinti and Roma from Belgium. The majority of the Jewish population of Antwerp consisted of immigrants and East European refugees; only very few survived. What's more, many non-Jewish citizens and resistance fighters were deported from Belgium, mostly to France where they were deployed in forced labour.

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

The »Monument voor de gedeporteerde Antwerpse Burgers« (English: »Monument to the Deported Citizens of Antwerp«) was commissioned by the »Forum der Joodse Organisaties« (»Forum of Jewish Organisations«) and set up close to the railway line in the Jewish quarter. The memorial, designed by artist Willem Bierwerts, was realised in cooperation with the City of Antwerp and dedicated on May 27, 1997. Its depiction of Torah scrolls is meant, amongst others, to commemorate the pogrom which took place on April 14, 1941.

Open

The monument is accessible at all times.

Contact

http://www.fjo.be

fjo@fjo.be

+32 (0)3 231 584 8

Belgiëlei 2
2018 Antwerpen

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