Collection of 44 rare issues of the weekly newspaper "News from Belgium and the Belgian Congo" - published by The Center, New York, N.Y, years: 1943-1945 - the only newspaper providing weekly coverage of events on the Belgian front against the Nazi enemy during World War II. The newspaper included real-time reports on the fate of Jews in Belgium - Nazi atrocities against Jews in Belgian cities, their deportation to death camps and murders. English.
1943: 15 issues, May - November. Issues No. 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 34, 35, 38, 39, 41, 43, 44, 45.
1944: 11 issues, April - December. Issues No. 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23, 29, 41, 42, 47,46.
1945: 18 issues, January - November. Issues No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 26, 48.
The weekly was published in New York City by the Belgian Information Center founded by the Belgian exile government. It was published between 1942 and 1945
was intended to bring news and information about Belgium and the Belgian Congo for Belgians in the US, Canada as well as to Americans and Canadians interested in Belgium and Congo. It regularly promoted unity of all groups in Belgium against the Nazis, reported deportations of Nazi resisters and Jews to concentration camps, and provided ongoing reports on the fate of Jews in Belgium, also featuring anti-Nazi cartoons. For example, issue no. 28 from July 1943 reported most Jews in Belgium deported to death camps, streets emptied of Jews identified by yellow patches. The issue details all the anti-Semitic regulations imposed by the Nazis in Belgium at that time and the manner in which Jews were deported. It was also reported that in Brussels, Germans entered a maternity hospital and kidnapped newborn babies from their mothers. Additionally, it was written that the gathering location for arrested Jews in Belgium was a converted barn in Mechelen used as a prison, where a certain number of Jews were executed by poison gas in a special chamber designed for this purpose. "It cannot be denied that a large number of Jewish children were deported to unknown destinations... In Charleroi, a Jewish woman threw her three-month-old baby into a ditch rather than hand him over to the Nazis trying to take him from her...". Issue dated October 9, 1943 featured a rare photo of prisoner roll call at a concentration camp referred to as "The Citadel Order" - likely Breendonk, which the Nazis made "impenetrable". The January 8, 1945 issue reported a cruel mass slaughter by the Nazis of at least 100 Belgian civilians, accompanied by a horrific photo of the murdered bodies.
Also included ongoing reports from the battlefield on the Belgian front, status reports on German attacks and casualties inflicted on Belgium, pursuit of Belgian partisans, damages partisans inflicted on Germans, allied war effort news and progress of Belgium and Congo's liberation. Each issue is accompanied by at least four photo pages and ten reporting pages.
Complete issues. Very good condition.
