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 violated both 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 at the municipalities. Exact numbers are unavailable, since the 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 Verordnung of 28 October 1940 was followed by 16 other anti-Jewish measures including the marking of ID cards of Jewish inhabitants with the stamp ‘Jood-Juif’ as of 29 July 1941, the obligatory membership of the Association of Jews in Belgium as of Spring 1942, wearing the yellow badge as of 27 May 1942, the loss of German nationality and the convocations for forced labour.

All Belgian municipalities received instructions regarding the anti-Jewish measures and created administrative files regarding their implementation. The forms of the Jewish Register were filled out by the Belgian municipalities, in Dutch or French, in 1940-1944. In general after completion a copy of the forms was sent to the Sicherheitspolizei-Sicherheitsdienst (Sipo-SD) in Brussels, which centralised the forms and arranged them alphabetically by municipality. However, the forms of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek are missing in the copy used by the Sicherheitspolizei-Sicherheitsdienst called the Jewish Register of Belgium (KD_00008). The files regarding the Jewish Register of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek remained part of the archives of the municipality and contain both the original forms and administrative documents regarding the registration. In 2009, the files on the implementation of the anti-Jewish measures in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek were digitised and the Jewish Register forms were indexed by the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance, predecessor of Kazerne Dossin. The originals were returned to the archives of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek.

The municipality of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, 2009