Jewish Group Sues Belgium Over Nazi Collaboration in Deporting 25,000 Jews to Auschwitz

A historic legal battle is unfolding in Belgium as the Jewish organization Nico Gonsbourg Foundation (NGF) files an unprecedented lawsuit against the Belgian government and the national railway company SNCB. The lawsuit accuses them of criminal collaboration with the Nazis during World War II, specifically for facilitating the deportation of approximately 25,000 Jews from the Dossin transit camp in Mechelen to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp between August 1942 and July 1944. Only a few thousand of those deported survived.

The NGF bases its case on research by historian Nico Watters, which revealed that the Belgian railway company received bribes to actively assist the Nazis in the logistics of deportations. The Belgian state is named a primary defendant as the majority shareholder of SNCB. The lawsuit demands financial compensation and official recognition of Belgium’s role in the Holocaust. Negotiations have taken place but have yet to yield an agreement; the legal process may be paused if serious talks including compensation begin.

Belgium previously acknowledged its responsibility in 2007 when then-Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt issued a formal apology after a government-commissioned report confirmed active cooperation between Belgian authorities and Nazi occupiers. Before the war, Belgium had a thriving Jewish community of about 50,000, half of whom were murdered during the Holocaust. Nearly 80 years after the deportations ceased, survivors and their descendants continue to seek justice and historical truth, emphasizing that no monetary sum can restore their immense losses but that recognition remains crucial.

The case highlights ongoing efforts to confront and reckon with Belgium’s wartime past and the complicity of its institutions in the genocide of European Jewry.