Jodenregister van Antwerpen. Collection

The German Verordnung (Anti-Jewish measure) of 28 October 1940, published in the Verordnungsblatt on 5 November 1940, ordered the registration of Jews from the age of 15 by the Belgian municipalities. The heads of the Belgian civil service willingly placed the country’s administrative apparatus at the occupier’s disposal to allow the registration of Jews, from Arlon to Ostend. In so doing, civil servants were attacking the Belgian constitution and the The Hague Convention no. IV of 1907. Henceforward, anyone with three Jewish grandparents was considered a “Jew”. Since the Nazis were unable to define the concept of “Jewishness” racially, they turned instead to a religious criterion. A person’s grandparent was Jewish if he or she (had) practiced the Jewish religion. Severe penalties were introduced for those who failed to register. Exact numbers are unavailable, since the exact size of the Jewish community in Belgium before 1940 is unknown, but it is estimated that 5% to 10% of the community did not register. However, the Belgian municipalities actively urged children turning 15 to visit the town hall. This resulted in the registration of Jews in Belgium up until 1943, long after deportations from the Dossin barracks had started.

The original Jewish Register forms were filled out by the Belgian municipalities, in Dutch or French, in 1940-1944, as a result of the German Verordnung (decree) of 28 October 1940. After completion, a copy of the forms was sent to the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in Brussels, which centralised the forms and arranged them alphabetically by municipality. This origins of this version of the Jewish Register of Antwerp, however, are unknown. Today, the forms are part of the archives of the Centraal Beheer voor Joodse Weldadigheid en Maatschappelijk Hulpbetoon [Central Bureau for Jewish Welfare and Social Aid], also known as “Centrale”, in Antwerp. The offices of the Centrale are located at a building in Lange Leemstraat, Antwerp, which was occupied by the Local Antwerp Committee of the Association of Jews in Belgium (AJB) between 1942 and 1944. Therefore, these forms might be a copy used by the AJB during the war. This hypothesis is strengthened by the observation that the forms of the Jewish Register of Antwerp contain less information than the forms of the Jewish Register of Belgium and do not contain any official stamps or signatures. The Jewish Register of Antwerp seems to be a summary of the key information on the much more complete Antwerp forms in the Jewish Register of Belgium. Almost all forms in the Jewish Register of Antwerp are part of the Jewish Register of Belgium too. Correspondence of the Centrale shows that the Jewish Register of Antwerp has been under the care of the Centrale at least as of 1956. In 1999 the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance, predecessor of Kazerne Dossin, obtained permission to clean, catalogue, digitise, index and preserve the individual forms. The project was finalised in 2003 after which the originals were given back to the Centrale in Antwerp.

Centraal Beheer voor Joodse Weldadigheid en Maatschappelijk Hulpbetoon [Central Bureau for Jewish Welfare and Social Aid], Antwerp