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JewishHistoryעברית

Antwerp pogrom

Date
14 April 1941Hebrew date: 17th of Nisan, 5701
Location
AntwerpBelgium
Then part of
German-occupied Belgium
Perpetrators
  • Flemish right-wing collaborators (Mob)
  • German occupation authorities (State)
Killed (estimate)
0[4]People killed. Hannes Pieters, writing for Belgium WWII, states that unlike Kristallnacht there were neither deaths nor injuries.
Country

0% of the Jewish population of German-occupied Belgium (c. 1940)[51]

Worldwide

0% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1939)[5]

Category
Pogrom
Confidence
DisputedYad Vashem's encyclopedia entry gives 10 April 1941; the Yad Vashem review of Saerens and the USHMM survivor biography place the pogrom in April 1941, with Saerens's date given as 14 April. Pieters, for Belgium WWII, dates it to 14 April and states that there were neither deaths nor injuries. The pages agree that local collaborators attacked synagogues and Jewish property.

Summary

In April 1941, during the German occupation of Belgium, members of right-wing movements attacked Antwerp's Jewish quarter. Yad Vashem's encyclopedia entry dates the outbreak to 10 April and states that rioters, spurred on by local German authorities, attacked two synagogues and a rabbi's home and were not restrained by the fire department or police. A Yad Vashem review of Lieven Saerens's study dates the pogrom to 14 April 1941 and describes it as instigated by local antisemitic elements with the tacit consent of the local German authorities. USHMM records a survivor's account of Belgians collaborating with the Nazis attacking Jewish-owned businesses and burning several synagogues. Hannes Pieters, writing for Belgium WWII, states that there were neither deaths nor injuries.

Sources

  1. Antwerp. Yad Vashem, Shoah Resource Center
  2. Dan Michman, Why Did So Many of the Jews in Antwerp Perish in the Holocaust?. Yad Vashem
  3. Flora Mendelowicz Singer. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  4. Hannes Pieters, Nuit de Cristal anversoise. Belgium WWII (CegeSoma / UGent)

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 16,500,000 – 16,633,675[5]c. 1939DellaPergola's revised core estimate for 1 January 1939 is 16.5 million. The American Jewish Year Book 1948–49 compiled 16,633,675 at the end of 1939.
  • German-occupied Belgium: 60,000 – 90,000[51]c. 1940USHMM Belgium: under occupation between 65,000 and 70,000 Jews lived in Belgium (overwhelmingly foreign/stateless). USHMM Losses: 90,000 in 1939. USHMM 1933 table: 60,000. AJYB Moskowitz note discusses refugees in Belgium among western European totals.

Sources for population estimates

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