#2 Belgium. The Committee for the Defense of the Jews (CDJ)
We speak with the archivist and historian Dorien Styven – our colleague from the Belgian Holocaust Memorial "Kazerne Dossin" – about the Committee for the Defense of the Jews (CDJ). This organization's main goal was to save as many Jews as possible from being murdered by the Nazis. Founded by young communists, the Committee brought together very different Jewish groups. It succeeded in creating a vast network that helped about 3,000 children hide in private families and child care institutions. Partisans close to the Committee also carried out the only known attack on a deportation train to have taken place during the Holocaust.
Shownotes:
Dorien Styven, “Jewish double Agents in Belgium: CDJ (Jewish Defense Committee) Employees within the Jewish Council”, Judith T. Baumel-Schwartz & Alan M. Schneider (ed.), All Our Brothers and Sisters. Jews Saving Jews During the Holocaust, Bern: Peter Lang, 2021, p. 57-70.
In Dutch: Dorien Styven, “Joods Verdedigingscomité”, Belgium WWII, 2019.
In Dutch: Dorien Styven, Populaire mythevorming rond het Joods Verdedigingscomité “ Bijdragen tot de Eigentijdse Herinnering / Les Cahiers de la mémoire contemporaine”, 2014, nr. 11, p. 153-201.
Marion Schreiber, “Silent Rebels. The True Story of the Raid on the Twentieth Train to Auschwitz”, 2003.
In German: Marion Schreiber, “Stille Rebellen. Der Überfall auf den 20. Deportationszug nach Auschwitz”, Berlin 2000.
Tanja von Fransecky, “Escapees. The History of Jews Who Fled Nazi Deportation Trains in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands”, 2019.
In German: Jakob Müller, Article about the Notebook of Andrée Geulen.
Ward Adriaens, Maxime Steinberg e.a., “Mecheln-Auschwitz, 1942-1944. The destruction of Jews and gypsies from Belgium”, Brussels 2009.
Dan Michman (ed.), “Belgium and the Holocaust: Jews, Belgians, Germans”, Jerusalem 1998.
Nico Wouters, “Mayoral Collaboration under Nazi occupation in Belgium, the Netherlands and France, 1938 - 46”, Cham 2016.
Werner Warmbrunn, “The German occupation of Belgium 1940-1944”, New York 1993.
In German: Insa Meinen, “Die Shoah in Belgien”, Darmstadt 2009.
The debate about the character of the holocaust and the participation of the Belgian administration between Lieven Saerens and Insa Meinen:
“The Persecution of the Jews in Belgium through a German Lens”