Union des Anciens Déportés Juifs de Belgique (UDJB). Collection

The Union des Déportés Juifs de Belgique (UDJB) was officially founded in 1956 as the Union des Déportés Juifs et Ayants Droit de Belgique. Its founding members, however, had organised meetings since 1953. The articles of association define the association’s goals as follows: to unite Jewish deportees, Jewish political prisoners and their beneficiaries residing in Belgium, to provide them with moral and material support, to defend their interests, and to ensure their representation. In 1961 the UDJB launched the idea for a national monument dedicated to the memory of the Jewish deportees from Belgium. The Mémorial aux Martyrs Juifs [Memorial for Jewish Martyrs] was inaugurated in Anderlecht in 1970. The UDJB was also involved in the creation of the Mémorial aux Héros, the monument dedicated to fallen Jewish resistance fighters, in the publication of the list of names of Jewish deportees of Belgium by Serge Klarsfeld and Maxime Steinberg in 1982, and in the creation of the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance (today Kazerne Dossin). Furthermore, the UDJB intervened in the trials of war criminals, e.g. as a civil party in the Kiel trial against Kurt Asche, Judenreferent (Jewish Affairs Officer) for the Sicherheitspolizei-Sicherheitsdienst in Brussels during the war. The first president of the UDJB was Hersch Zuckerman. He was succeeded by Maurice Pioro in 1960. As of 2000 the association was presided by Micha Eisenstorg. Today, one of the UDJB’s main activities is the organisation of the pilgrimage to the former SS-Sammellager Mecheln (Dossin barracks). The first edition of this annual commemoration was organised in 1956.

These documents were donated to the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance, predecessor of Kazerne Dossin, by Maurice Pioro, former president of the Union des Anciens Déportés Juifs de Belgique, on 3 September 2003.

Maurice Pioro, former president of the Union des Anciens Déportés Juifs de Belgique, 2003