Transport Z1 from Caserne Dossin (Malines-Mechelen), Camp, Belgium to Buchenwald, Camp, Germany on 13/12/1943

At the start of the war, Jews in Belgium numbered an estimated 66,000 out of a population of 8 million. Most of them lived in Antwerp and Brussels, to a lesser degree in Charleroi and Liège (Luik). Fewer than 10% were Belgian citizens. The vast majority were Polish immigrants and refugees who had fled persecution after Hitler's attack on Poland.

The deportation of Jews from Belgium began in August 1942. The first transport left the Mechelen transit camp for Auschwitz on August 4, 1942 and the transports that followed left the camp twice a week, deporting about 1,000 foreign Jews in each transport. At the end of August Eichmann increased the deportation numbers of Jews residing in Belgium from 10,000 to 20,000. This quota would not be met: by the end of the year, 14 trains had left from Mechelen deporting a total of 16,882 Jews. Because many Jews had gone into hiding and had escaped, the Sipo-SD found it difficult to bring enough Jews to the Mechelen camp to form a transport. As a result, transports left Mechelen less frequently in 1943....