Comité de Défense des Juifs

Founded in 1942

In 1942 the Comité de Défense des Juifs was established as part of the Belgian underground to aid and rescue the nation’s Jews. The CDJ hide thousands of children with non-Jewish families and religious organizations, published clandestine anti-Nazi newspapers, and created false identification papers for Jews in hiding. In addition, they tried to sabotage the German war machine by setting fire to factories and derailing trains. They especially were active against those persons and organizations that they believed were providing useful information to the Nazis. In the summer of 1942, the Comité de Défense des Juifs carried out several attacks against the Association des Juifs en Belgique (Association of Jews Belgium). On one such occasion, Jewish fighters broke into the office of the Association des Juifs en Belgique in Brussels and set fire to the files containing the names and addresses of Jews in Belgium, which the Gestapo used to round up individuals for deportation. The CDJ also developed a vast network for hiding Jews, which succeeded in aiding some 3,000 to 4,000 children and about 10,000 adults. On the night of 1943-04-19, the CDJ liberated 231 Jews out of a deportation train.