The Belgian Information Center here today, in a statement reviewing the deportation of Jews from Belgium, emphasizes that “in less than a year the Germans have removed nearly all the Jews among the population of occupied Belgium.”
“The Star of David which Jews had to wear was a fairly common sight after the 1942 census, but it has now almost entirely disappeared,” the statement says. “Most of the Jews have been interned in concentration camps in Germany, Poland and Russia. The Germans themselves stated, as long ago as November last, that of the 52,000 Jews in Belgium at least 25,000 had been deported.
“According to reports received,” the statement continues, “the assembly point for Jews arrested in Belgium is a barracks at Mechilin, which has been converted into a prison. A certain number of Jews are believed to have been asphyxiated there by means of poison gas, in a cell specially arranged for that purpose, and other Jews to have suffered the same fate in hermetically sealed trucks on the way to Mechlin. These sinister rumors are set afloat by the Germans themselves.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
