Deported from Belgium: Research, education, and commemoration at Kazerne Dossin in Mechelen

During the Second World War, 25,843 Jews, Sinti and Roma were deported from the Dossin barracks in Mechelen, Belgium, most to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Only about five percent survived the camps. This site is now home to the Kazerne Dossin Memorial, Museum, and Research Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights. Its Curator and Director of Collections & Research, Dr. Veerle Vanden Daelen, addresses in this lecture both the history of this SS assembly camp in Belgium during the Second World War, and its post-war journey towards becoming one of the main sites of remembrance, education, and research on the Holocaust in the heart of Europe.

This event will be online.

Veerle Vanden Daelen is Curator and Director Collections & Research at Kazerne Dossin: Memorial, Museum and Research Centre on the Holocaust and Human Rights (Mechelen, Belgium). She holds a PhD in History from the University of Antwerp. Her dissertation examined the return and reconstruction of Jewish life in Antwerp after the Second World War (1944-1960). She has held fellowships at the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies (University of Michigan) and the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies (University of Pennsylvania). Besides numerous articles, she has authored two books, Vrouwbeelden in het Vlaams Blok (Ghent, 2002) and Laten we hun lied verder zingen. De heropbouw van de joodse gemeenschap in Antwerpen na de Tweede Wereldoorlog (1944-1960) (Amsterdam, 2008). Veerle is actively involved in the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI) and is member of the Belgian delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). She is also affiliated to the University of Antwerp, where she has taught courses on Migration History, Jewish history, and other topics, and where, together with Karin Hofmeester, she organises the annual “Contact Day Jewish Studies on the Low Countries” at the Institute of Jewish Studies.