Photostates of 29 issues of a fortnightly bulletin issued by the Office Israelite de Presse et de Documentation in Brussels between April and December 1945. A large part of it is devoted to reports about actions taken by Belgians “to counteract the antisemitic measures taken by the Germans”. Besides it lists articles in Belgian and other papers on similar subjects and contains a paper by Jean Stengers on the German anti-Jewish propaganda (Nos. 6 - 17).

Apart from the reports given in the seprate collection of items from the Ofipresse Bulletin (see P.III.f. (Belgium) No. 889) the following subjects are covered:

     A report on Birkenau by a Belgian Jew (No. 1).

     Intervention by Cardinal Van Roey and by Queen Elizabeth in favour of the Jews (No. 1 & 2).

     Collaboration of the Belgian resistance organisation “Front de l'Independance” with the Jewish Comité de Défense des Juifs (CDJ) in saving Jews from deportation (No. 3 & 16) including an attack, helped by Belgian railway workers on a train deporting Jews to Auschwitz led by Dr. Youra Lifschitz and a subsequent attack, with the help of the Belgian doctor Thys on the hospital where some of the Jews wounded in the action were confined (No. 17).

     A song by the prisoners of Malines (No. 4 & 6).

     Attempts to save Jews from extermination towards the end of the war by the Corps Consulaire and the Red Cross in Belgium (No. 5) and the War Refugee Board (No. 24).

     Yvonne Nevejan's help in saving Jewish children as director general of the Oeuvre Nationale de l'Enfance (No. 6).

     The efforts of the Italian Consul-General in Saloniki, Guelfo Zambone and his successor, Giuseppe Castruccio, to save Jews from deportation (No. 8).

     Help to Jews by the Belgian Red Cross (No. 11).

     Postmen warning Jews of denunciations or arrests and destroying letters of denunciation (No. 12).

     Help for Jews in hiding by Mgr. Kerkhofs, bishop of Liege, and other Catholic organisations; the organisation of false papers for Jews in hiding by the Front de l'Independence - Max Katz, who was responsible for this, was deported; (No. 17).

     The story of Mala Zimetbaum who escaped from Auschwitz, was recaptured and died heroically under tortures (No. 17).

     A report by a Jewish inmate of Sachenhausen, M. Wulfowikz, on the forging of banknotes in the camp (18).

     The work of the Comité de Defense des Juifs (23).

     A list of transports and numbers of Jews deported from Malines : 25,441 deported; 1,986 returned (No. 28).

     A report on the Canada, the block in Auschwitz where women prisoners sorted and stored belongings of those who had been gassed (No. 29).

The informant and her husband, formerly resident in Vienna, were Czechoslovakian citizens who, after the Anschluss, were for a time protected by the Czechoslovakian Embassy in Vienna. In September 1938, however, they were forced to seek refuge in Slovakia. Conditions there, according to the informant, were bearable, though gradually worsening. The Jewish communities were sometimes able, by means of bribery, to save young people from deportation to labour camps in Poland. Tiszo, the Head of the Slovakian government, was responsible for relieving the lot of the Jews in many instances. The Catholic Church hid Jewish children and tried to protect them by nominal conversion.

In September 1944 persecution by the Germans became more severe; the informant and her husband lived “underground” for a time, but in October they were arrested and brought to camp Sered in Slovakia, where terrible conditions obtained. Many prisoners were shot in the presence of fellow-prisoners. The brutal and corrupt methods of the camp commandant, Brunner, are described in detail. From Sered the informant was transferred to Theresienstadt. Pages 4 - 8 contain a description of life in Theresienstadt; they provide no novel information.