Jewish Museum of Belgium, Brussels - The municipalities of Charleroi, Liège (Lüttich/Luik) and Mons are missing from the series.
Access to the name index, containing the names of all persons older than 15 who registered, is available at the Kazerne Dossin documentation centre. The addition of the names of children is an ongoing process.
Digitally stored at Kazerne Dossin
Since the Belgian municipalities kept the original forms while sending copies to the Sicherheitsdienst in Brussels, some of the municipalities still have their original Jewish registers. Kazerne Dossin digitised several of these series (Zonhoven, Diepenbeek, Jette, Molenbeek-Saint-Jean) and added them to its catalogue under a seperate call number.
No further accruals are to be expected.
Contact Kazerne Dossin Documentation Centre: archives@kazernedossin.eu
Jewish Museum of Belgium, Brussels - Digitised by Kazerne Dossin, Mechelen
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 comply. 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. Administrative documents were sometimes attached. A copy of the forms was then sent to the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in Brussels, which centralised the forms and arranged them alphabetically by municipality. After the war, the Jewish Social Services in Brussels, in need of tools to identify Jewish victims, obtained permission to use the series from the Belgian state, which is the owner of the documents since the forms were compiled by the municipalities during the performance of their duty. Kazerne Dossin cleaned, catalogued, digitised and preserved the individual forms in acid-free folders and boxes in 2003 after the series was transferred by the Jewish Social Services to the Jewish Museum of Belgium, where it is still stored today.
83,477 digitised images : 217 binders containing ca. 45,000 registration forms
Alphabetically by municipality, then by surname.
The German decree of 28 October 1940 made it compulsory for all Jews from the age of 15 to register in the Jewish register of the municipality where they officially lived. The names of younger children were added to the forms of the parents (in most cases the copy of the father). Each form has room for the following information : surname, first names, date and place of birth, profession, nationality, religion, date of arrival in Belgium, the country of migration, successive addresses, date and place of registration, and the person’s signature, but also name, date and place of birth and religion of the spouse, the parents, the grandparents and the children. Most of the time not all the information was filled out during the registration process. The Jewish register of Belgium contains ca. 45,000 registration forms from more than 250 municipalities. The registers of Charleroi, Liège (Lüttich/Luik) and Mons (Bergen) are missing.
Registre des Juifs de Belgique - Jodenregister van België. Series