Did Belgian Minister Condone Nazi Collaborators?
A representative of Flemish Jews asked a deputy prime minister of Belgium to clarify statements in which he appeared to condone the actions of Nazi collaborators.
Jan Jambon, who is also Belgium’s interior minister, made the statements during an interview which was published last week in the La Libre Belgique newspaper.
During the interview, Jambon, who is a member of the New Flemish Alliance party, was asked about his participation in 2001 at a rally organized by the far-right association Sint-Maartenfonds, whose mission statement is to support Flemish Belgians who fought on Nazi Germany’s side in World War II. Commenting about these veterans, he said: “The people who collaborated with the Germans, they had their reasons. I did not live in those times.”
After the Oct. 13 publication of the interview, Jambon rejected any interpretation of his words as condoning Nazism or collaboration with Nazi Germany and apologized to anyone who was offended by them.
But Raphael Werner of the Flemish Forum of Jewish Organizations told the Antwerp-based Joods Actueel newspaper that the forum wants to meet with Jambon and discuss the issue more thoroughly.
“Then we could hear for ourselves what are the positions of the minister, not only about collaboration but also about the sensitive questions connected to it,” he said, according to an article published on Oct. 14.
More than one-third of Belgium’s Jewish population of approximately 66,000 was sent to Auschwitz, according to Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.
Belgium, a federal bi-national state, comprises three autonomous regions: The Dutch-speaking Flemish Region; the French-speaking Walloon Region; and the central Brussels region.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/2014/10/20/news-opinion/world/flemish-jews-ask-deputy-prime-minister-to-clarify-statements-in-nazi-collaborators#ixzz3Gg9NMMcU
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
