page_title: The Holocaust in Belgium
section_title: Early discrimination and persecution, 1940–41
hierarchical_section_title: The Holocaust in Belgium / The Holocaust / Early discrimination and persecution, 1940–41
caption_attribution_description: English: 1939 Belgium ID card issued to a Polish Jewish woman with over-tamp for JUIVE.
context_page_description: The Holocaust in Belgium was the systematic dispossession, deportation, and murder of Jews and Roma in German-occupied Belgium during World War II. Out of about 75,000 Jews in the country in 1940, around 24,000 were murdered during the Holocaust.
  At the start of the war, the population of Belgium was overwhelmingly Catholic. Jews made up the largest non-Christian population in the country, numbering between 70–75,000 out of a population of 8 million. Most lived in the cities of Antwerp, Brussels, Charleroi and Liège. The vast majority were recent immigrants to Belgium who had fled persecution in Germany and Eastern Europe, and, as a result, only a small minority actually possessed Belgian citizenship.
  Shortly after the invasion of Belgium, the Military Government passed a series of anti-Jewish laws in October 1940. The Belgian Committee of Secretary-Generals refused from the start to co-operate on passing any anti-Jewish measures and the Military Government seemed unwilling to pass further legislation. The German government began to seize Jewish-owned businesses and forced Jews out of positions in the civil service.
context_section_description: On 23 October 1940, the German Military Administration adopted anti-Jewish legislation for the first time. The new laws, similar to the Nuremberg Laws adopted in Germany in 1935, coincided with the adoption of similar legislation in the Netherlands and in France. The laws of 28 October forbade Jews to practice certain professions (including the civil service) and forced Jews to register with their local municipality. On the same date, the German administration announced a definition of who was regarded as Jewish. Jewish-owned shops or businesses had to be marked by a sign in the window, and Jewish-owned economic assets had to be registered. From June 1940, a list of Jewish businesses had already been drawn up in Liège.
  In 1940, the German government began to liquidate Jewish businesses. Some were transferred to German ownership in a process termed Aryanization. Some 6,300 Jewish-owned businesses were liquidated before 1942, and 600 were Aryanized. Around 600 million Belgian francs was raised from the seizures, much less than anticipated.
  In total, between 28 October 1940 and 21 September 1942, 17 anti-Jewish ordinances were proclaimed by the Military Administration.
caption: 1939 Belgium ID card issued to a Polish Jewish woman with over-tamp for JUIVE.
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