Metadata: General Documentation – Association des Juifs en Belgique
Collection
- Country:
- Belgium
- Holding institution:
- Directorate-General War Victims, Archives and Documentation Department
- Holding institution (official language):
- Direction Générale Victimes de la Guerre, Service Archives et Documentation
- Postal address:
- Luchtvaartsquare 31 / Square de l’Aviation 31, 1070 Brussel (Anderlecht)
- Phone number:
- +32 (0)2 528 91 57
- Web address:
- http://warvictims.fgov.be/
- Email:
- archidoc@minsoc.fed.be
- Reference number:
- DirGenWarVic-Brussels-Algemene documentatie – Association des Juifs en Belgique
- Title:
- General Documentation – Association des Juifs en Belgique
- Title (official language):
- Algemene documentatie – Association des Juifs en Belgique
- Creator/accumulator:
- Vereniging der Joden in België; Association des Juifs en Belgique
- Date(s):
- 1940/1972
- Language:
- German
- French
- Extent:
- 10 binders and 9 folders
- Scope and content:
- In this fonds we find archival material mainly produced by the Vereniging der Joden in België/Association des Juifs en Belgique, as well as by the Auditoraat-Generaal and rabbi Salomon Ullmann. We find, for example, minutes of meetings of the various governing bodies of the VJB-AJB such as the Comité Directeur (r.497/tr.146.666, years 1942-1943) and the Comité Local de Bruxelles (r.497/tr.206.891 and r.715/tr.248.745, dated 1941-1943), and of joint meetings (r.497/tr.202.700 and r.715/tr.248.745, dated 1943-1944); reports on the financial situation and the activities of the Comité Local de Bruxelles (r.715/tr.248.745, years 1942-1944); attendance lists of the homes for children of the VJB-AJB (r.715/tr.248.745, 1943-1944); post cards and letters from deported Jews to friends and relatives in Belgium (r.123/tr.79.561/**, years 1942-1944); reports on the situation of the Jews in Belgium written by M. Benedictus and the war diary of S. Van den Berg (r.497/tr.245.218, 1940-1944); registers of Jews who were summoned to go to (the Sammellager in) Mechelen, arranged by municipality and date of departure (9 folders, dated 1942-1943; see Nefors, nos. 1470 - 1478). This fonds also contains (copies of) a part of the private archives of rabbi Dr. Salomon Ullmann, president of the VJB-AJB, including correspondence with the Militärverwaltung, reports, etc. See r.696/tr.267.125 (1941-1945). Lastly we point out the binder containing various documents on the VJB-AJB (including lists of the staff) and reports on interviews with former members of the VJB-AJB or the Comité de Défense des Juifs (such as Yvonne Jospa, Maurice Heiber, Mr. and Mrs. Rosenzweig), conducted in 1971-1972 by Mrs. Grynsberg. See “I. Interviews effectués par Mme Grynsberg etc.; II. Archives de mr. Blum relatives à AJB; III. Listes du personnel AJB communiquées aux autorités allemandes (SD)” (See Nefors, no. 1469).
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Vereniging der Joden in België - Association des Juifs en Belgique (VJB/AJB)(‘association of Jews in Belgium’) was created in late 1941 at the initiative of the German security services led by Heinrich Himmler. Through the creation of a representative body for the entire Jewish population in Belgium, the occupier hoped to increase the social isolation of the Jews as well as facilitate the implementation of its own anti-Jewish policy. The VJB/AJB, initially with Salomon Ullmann as its president, was de facto controlled by the Militärverwaltung and the Sipo-SD. The central office of the VJB/AJB was located in Brussels, with local branches in Antwerp, Brussels, Charleroi, Ghent and Liège. From the autumn of 1943 only the Brussels branch remained. The VJB/AJB branches were primarily directed by integrated Jews from the bourgeoisie – usually notables who already held leading positions within the Jewish communities before the war. In the first phase (January 1942 – late June 1942), the institution was mainly active in the organisation of Jewish charity and education, separated from broader Belgian society by the anti-Jewish ordinances. The VJB/AJB managed, among others, a number of homes for children and the elderly. The deportation of Jews to northern France for compulsory labour on the Atlantikwall (for Organisation Todt) marked the beginning of the second phase (June 1942 – September 1943), in which the VJB/AJB was charged with the preparations for the physical removal of the Jews from Belgium, culminating in the sending of the “employment orders” (tewerkstellingsbevelen) summoning Jews to report to the Dossin barracks in Mechelen. Finally, from September 1943 the VJB/AJB leaders – who, after the roundups and deportations, no longer held any illusions about the role of the VJB/AJB – focused on bringing friends, family and themselves into safety. The VJB/AJB was eventually dissolved in August 1944. The tragic and extremely complex role of the VJB/AJB can hardly be summarised in binary frameworks of collaboration and resistance. Rather, it should be seen as a process of ‘accommodement’ of the occupier, influenced by factors such as the personalities of the VJB/AJB-leaders as well as their legalism and bourgeois conformism. However, the VJB/AJB was, even as an instrument of the occupying forces, less docile than was hoped for. It was the active policy of the “curators” of the “legal ghetto”, stuck “between obligation and necessity”, to minimise the impact of the anti-Jewish ordinances as much as possible, and to meet the everyday social, cultural, economic and religious needs of the Jewish population. Until the roundups in the autumn of 1942, it appears that a significant part of the Jewish population trusted the VJB/AJB. The relationship of the institution with the resistance was somewhat ambiguous; certain functionaries (including Perelman and Heiber) were at the same time also members of the Comité de Défense des Juifs. After the war an investigation into the VJB – in the context of the repression against incivisme – was classified and no further legal action was taken. Former VJB/AJB leaders (including Ullmann, Blum and Van den Berg) continued to hold eminent positions within certain Jewish institutions. For pragmatic reasons a part of the VJB/AJB staff was integrated into the organisation Aide aux Israélites Victimes de la Guerre. For quite some time, a strategy of pacification was implemented and a debate on the VJB/AJB avoided, in order to prevent total disintegration of the organised Jewish community due to an internal purge (epuratie). The first cautious attempts (in particular regarding the VJB/AJB in Brussels and Liège) were undertaken only in the 1960s. Today, the role and legacy of the VJB/AJB is still a highly sensitive and controversial issue with the Belgian Jewish communities. (J.-P. Schreiber, “Association des juifs de Belgique”, in P. Aron & J. Gotovitch, Dictionnaire de la Seconde Guerre mondiale en Belgique, Brussel, André Versaille, 2008, pp. 60-61; J.-P. Schreiber & R. van Doorslaer (eds.), De curatoren van het getto. De Vereniging van de joden in België tijdens de nazi-bezetting, Tielt, Lannoo, 2004, pp. 433-466.)
- Access points: persons/families:
- Benedictus, M
- Heiber, Maurice
- Jospa, Yvonne
- Rosenzweig
- Ullmann, Salomon
- Van Den Berg, S
- Access, restrictions:
- The files can be consulted by the concerned individuals and their descendants. Consultation for the purpose of scientific research is authorised on the basis of a research declaration.
- Finding aids:
- There is a thematic and geographic card index. There is also a (partially outdated) inventory: P. Nefors, Inventaris van het Archief van de Dienst voor de Oorlogsslachtoffers – Inventaire des Archives du Service des Victimes de la Guerre, Brussel, 1997.
- Yerusha Network member:
- State Archives of Belgium
