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ABSTRACT
In the aftermath of the Second World War in Europe, violence inflicted on supporters of the former regimes was ubiquitous. In this paper, the author looks at how the Belgian judiciary dealt with this violence. A case study in the judicial district of Brussels shows that hardly any post-liberation cases of violence inflicted on (alleged) collaborators by members of resistance groups were brought before a court. Although the public prosecutor investigated the attacks in depth, practical, legal and pragmatic considerations made it difficult or impossible to bring the cases before a judge. At a practical level, the profile of both the victims and the perpetrators of such violence hindered the investigations. At a legal level, a decree-law issued one year after the liberation amnestied members of resistance organizations who had committed crimes in the context of their resistance activities. Apart from this legal context, the judiciary pragmatically took account of public reaction to their prosecution policy. Prosecuting those who had attacked collaborators would not only disturb public order, but could also harm the position of the judiciary itself, which was trying to reaffirm its legitimacy after the troubled occupation period.
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Notes
1. The author would like to thank Gertjan Desmet and Johannes Van De Walle (Brussels State Archives) for theirinvaluable archival help, Dirk Luyten (Cegesoma) for his remarks on earlier drafts of this article and the IAPJustice & Populations for providing funding for this research project.
2. “Mosul, waar de wraak zoet is,” De Standaard, July 13, 2017.
3. Of course, in areas where the liberation period was more violent, academic and non-academic attention on this subject is more widespread. This is particularly the case for Southern and Eastern Europe. In countries that experienced relatively little or mostly symbolic forms of violence during liberation, such as Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands, research understandably focuses more on subjects such as the shaving of women’s hair and the (mal)treatment of detained collaborators. For example: Grevers, Van landverraders tot goede vaderlanders; Diederichs, Wie geschoren wordt; 1945. Defeat, Liberation, New Beginning, 101 and 116; Warring, “Aimer l’ennemi au Danemark,” 132–3; idem, Tyskerpiger; and Olsen, Krigens barn.
4. Frommer, National Cleansing, 40–5; Snyder, “The Causes of Ukrainian–Polish Ethnic Cleansing,” 197–234; and Ther and Siljak, Redrawing Nations.
5. Mazower, “Three Forms of Political Justice,” 31–2; Völkl, “Spirals of Violence,” 849–60.
6. Cooke, The Legacy of the Italian Resistance, 18; Storchi, “Post-War Violence in Italy,” 237–50. See also: Pavone, Une guerre civile, 592–603.
7. Some scholars explicitly regard summary executions of collaborators as just one of several forms of physical and symbolic violence, which was largely accepted by the population and influenced by long-term social developments. Bergère, Une société en épuration, 331 and 276 and Capdevila, Les Bretons au lendemain de l’occupation, 124–37. According to research in most French départements, some 1380 alleged collaborators were murdered after liberation. Rousso, “The Purge in France,” 95.
8. Exceptions include: Marc Bergère, “Pratiques et régulations des violences,” 323–32; Fabrice Grenard, “La Résistance en accusation;” and Greta Fedele’s ongoing PhD research on post-war trials against resistance members in France and Italy.
9. Jean-Marc Berlière and Franck Liaigre describe how the French judiciary did not have much room for manoeuvre in cases in which resistance members were suspected of post-liberation crimes, because any prosecution would be regarded as an attempt to “rehabilitate” the Vichy regime and harm the resistance. Berlière and Liaigre, Ainsi finissent les salauds, 279.
10. Historian Mélanie Bost suggests that studying the judiciary in times of crisis is particularly rewarding because such periods force magistrates out of their comfort zones and oblige them to justify their attitudes. Bost, “Traverser l’occupation,” 14.
11. For example: Teitel, Transitional Justice; Stan and Nedelsky, Encyclopedia of Transitional Justice; and Wouters, Transitional Justice and Memory.
12. The 1990s television series and accompanying publication Jours de guerre is an important exception to this rule. Balace, “Les hoquets de la libération.”
13. Many publications on post-liberation violence against collaborators originate from this anti-Belgian victim narrative and/or are particularly intended to reinforce this idea. Their underlying political agenda and/or uncritical and exclusive use of victims’ testimonies strongly influence authors’ messages. Examples include Schermsakse, Het boek derschande; and Brouwers, Uit het zwartboek der zwarten. In 1991, the influential Flemish journalist Maurice De Wilde produced a television series on the post-war popular and judicial punishment of collaborators. The oral accounts used in this and his other programmes can be consulted in the Cegesoma (AA 1825). The programme’s scientific board often criticized De Wilde for making generalizations and for insufficient source-criticism. Cf. Vanden Daelen, “Loe de Jong en Maurice De Wilde,” 178. More recently, a journalist working for the Flemish public broadcasting network VRT published a book in which the chapter on “street repression” in Flanders is almost exclusively (and uncritically) based on oral accounts recorded for Maurice De Wilde’s programme and testimonies published in the older publications mentioned above: Clerbout, En nu gaan ze boeten!, 20–61.
14. De Wever, “Septemberweerstanders,” 384–92; and Beyen, “Elle est de plus en plus noire,” 99–114. The anti-state elements in this rhetoric are not exclusively linked to the memory of the Second World War, but fit in to a more general historical narrative “in which the Flemings appeared as the victims and the Belgian state as the oppressor”. Beyen, “A Parricidal Memory,” 41.
15. Academic historical research long ago debunked several myths surrounding the punishment of collaborators in Belgium. See for example: Huyse and Dhondt, Onverwerkt verleden; and Aerts, “Repressie zonder maat of einde?”
16. François Welter, Criminalité populaire, brutalité structurelle; and Thiry, Le tribut des temps troubles.
17. In the entire country, historians have estimated that approximately 50 to 100 people died as a result of anti-collaboration violence. Balace, “Les hoquets de la libération,” 130 and De Vos, De bevrijding, 99.
18. Sometimes, the perpetrators were simply referred to as having been members of the “white brigade”, a generic phrase for the resistance. In a small number of cases, individual suspects could be identified, but often the perpetrators were only described as members a certain resistance organization. Most large resistance groups were mentioned: the left-wing Onafhankelijkheidsfront/Front de l’Indépendance and its armed organization Gewapende Partizanen/Partisans Armés, the Mouvement National Belge, the right-wing Mouvement National Royaliste, Athos and Insoumis. Violence against collaborators was therefore not, as has sometimes been suggested, an exclusively left-wing or communist affair.
19. The cases were found in the archives of the Brussels public prosecutor’s office and were all part of a collection of dismissed cases. Despite being found in this collection, not all cases were in fact dismissed: some of them were pursued.
20. Neither does it include the approximately 40 cases of vandalism and looting in the judicial district in this same period. These acts were mostly carried out by neighbours and unidentified crowds and resistance groups did not play a decisive role. All of these cases were dismissed by the public prosecutor’s office. This research also leaves aside the important second wave of violence against collaborators in May–June 1945. These acts of violence were often of a symbolic nature: they included dozens of cases in which swastikas and other graffiti were painted on the houses of (presumed) collaborators, some cases of threatening letters, vandalism and anti-collaborator manifestations and a few cases of verbal and physical violence. Like the earlier cases of vandalism, these acts were usually carried out anonymously or by crowds and all cases were dismissed. State Archives Brussels, archives of the Brussels public prosecutor’s office 1918–1985 [hereafter: BE RABH, PK Brussels], inv. no. 5156–5164.
21. These numbers can be found in Balace, “Les hoquets de la libération,” 130 and De Vos, De bevrijding, 99.
22. Rapport sur l’activité du Haut Commissariat à la sécurité de l’état, 29 juillet 1943–1er novembre 1945, 30.
23. Based on judicial files, historian Amandine Thiry counted 28 (alleged) collaborators executed by resistance groups between 28 August (the liberation of Mons) and November 1994. Thiry, Le tribut des temps troubles, 59–64.
24. Megan Koreman explains how in France some “postliberation vigilantes used violence when they felt they had no access to other, more peaceful punishments” and “local purgers inflicted the penalty that they felt the authorities should have imposed”. Koreman, The Expectation of Justice, 114–15.
25. In this article, I do not consider deaths in detention camps, as these happened in very different circumstances influenced by incarceration.
26. BE RABH, PK Brussels, inv. no. 6426, dossier 18596.
27. BE RABH, PK Brussels, inv. no. 5143, dossier 17334.
28. This is not unique to the judicial district of Brussels: in the districts of Namur and Mons, similar cases were also dismissed. Welter, “Criminalité populaire, brutalité structurelle,” 51; and Thiry, Le tribut des temps troubles, 144–6.
29. BE RABH, PK Brussels, inv. no. 6426, dossier 15490.
30. BE RABH, PK Brussels, inv. no. 6426, dossiers 21770 and 23721.
31. Public prosecutor to chief prosecutor, March 2, 1945. BE RABH, PK Brussels, inv. no. 6426, dossier 21770.
32. The number of criminal cases reported to the public prosecutor’s offices exploded in 1942–3 and decreased slowly after 1945. However, crime rates in 1949 were still one-third higher than those in 1939. Dupréel, “De misdadigheid van gemeenrecht,” 279. The homicide rate exploded in 1944 and remained exceptionally high until 1946. Rousseaux, Vesentini, and Vrints, “Violence and War,” 190.
33. Beckers, “Criminologische studie;” and Bouveroux, Terreur in oorlogstijd, 124.
34. Lagrou, “Regaining the Monopoly of Force,” 193.
35. Rousso, “The Purge in France,” 121.
36. Some cases of violence against collaborators during the occupation were brought to court in the late 1940s. If the murders were inspired by criminal motives unrelated to the resistance, perpetrators sometimes received long prison sentences. Le Soir, February 3, October 21 and December 14, 1948; January 18, May 3, April 1, and July 1, 1950.
37. For the activities of the Haut Commissariat in the Antwerp and Hainaut regions: Eric Laureys, “Het bevrijde België (1944–1945). Feiten, opinies en voorstellingen” (Cegesoma AB 2158) and Frédéric Dauphin, “La Belgique liberée septembre 1944-novembre 1945. Faits, opinions er répresentations” (Cegesoma AB 2009).
38. Rapport sur l’activité du Haut Commissariat à la sécurité de l’état, 30.
39. Ibid.
40. “Besluitwet tot vaststelling van het Statuut van den Gewapenden Weerstand,” September 19, 1945, Belgisch Staatsblad, 6737 and Lagrou, The Legacy of Nazi Occupation, 51.
41. BE RABH, PK Brussels, inv. no. 6426, dossiers 16646 and 17120.
42. BE RABH, PK Brussels, inv. no. 6426, dossiers 15490 and 18044. In 1944–5, the issue of who was competent to try members of resistance groups seems to have been discussed between the Minister of Justice and the chief military prosecutor. Consequently, they instructed both the ordinary and military judiciary that the former was competent in these cases. However, since these instructions preceded the law on the recognition of armed members of the resistance, they do not seem to have been widely known and accepted. Brussels State Archives, archive Documentation Instructions Générales Auditorat Général, F110/4 and F110/10–2.
43. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, despite their earlier reluctance, military courts in various parts of the country did try a number of cases of violence inflicted on collaborators by members of resistance organizations. For example: “Le double crime du bois de Mariemont,” Le Soir, March 1, 1949; Brussels State Archives, book of sentences Brussels military court, sentence C.D., May 18, 1949; “Un drame de la résistance à Tongres,” Le Soir, July 3–11, 1951.
44. Chief prosecutor to public prosecutor, February 5, 1945. BE RABH, PK Brussels, inv. no. 6426, dossier 16646.
45. In theory, the consecutive Ministers of Justice could have interfered by ordering the public prosecutor to (further) investigate particular cases, but there are no signs that any of them did.
46. Public prosecutor to chief prosecutor, October 11, 1945. BE RABH, PK Brussels, inv. no. 6426, dossier 17507.
47. Hendrick, “Des mots de circonstance,” 296–7; and Bost, “Traverser l’occupation,” 80.
48. Zurné, Tussen twee vuren, 191.
49. Conway, “Justice in Postwar Belgium,” 10.
50. In their research on a resistance group that murdered several dozen alleged collaborators after the liberation of Paris, Jean-Marc Berlière and Franck Liaigre observed the same phenomenon. Berlière and Liaigre, Ainsi finissent les salauds, 279.
51. In the late 1940s, the public prosecutor’s office dismissed approximately 80% of all charges filed. Struye, “Regards sur la répression,” 809.
52. Cf. the lack of effort by both the police and the public in 2000 to find the murderer of a convicted paedophile who had been released from prison shortly before his death. Fattah, “Violence against the Socially Expendable,” 767–8.
53. Unfortunately, no sources exist on public opinion in the direct aftermath of liberation, other than the media. Studies on how newspapers reported the punishment of collaborators show how in the first months after liberation, media of various political views stressed the need to punish collaborators (“traitors”). While some newspapers explicitly called for “an eye for an eye”, others stressed the need to remain within the realm of legality and avoid all excesses. Laurent, “L’opinion publique face à la répression,” 48–56.
54. Le Soir Illustré, September 12, 1944; Le Peuple, September 9, 1944; La Nation Belge, September 16, 1944.
55. Christie, “The Ideal Victim,” 18–19.
56. For situations in which victims of crimes are not regarded as such because of their social status or ethnic background, see: Strobl, “Constructing the Victim,” 295–311.
57. Gheude, La libération, 187–8 ; and Struye, Journal de guerre, 510 and 513–15. Bergère states that, in France, public opinion considered that collaborators had broken with the local community because of their wartime behaviour and that consequently normal laws and rules were no longer applicable to them. Bergère, “Pratiques et regulations des violences,” 19.
58. Fattah, “Violence against the Socially Expendable,” 767 and 780.
59. Ibid., 772.
60. Similarly, so-called “victim-offenders” (criminals who are also victims of crimes) struggle to be acknowledged as victims or even to see themselves as such. Heber, “Good versus Bad?” 411–12.
61. José Gotovitch, Du rouge au tricolore. Les communistes belges de 1939 à 1944, 411–12; and Jeffrey Warner, “Allies, Government and Resistance,” 57. See also Martin Conway, The Sorrows of Belgium, 91–2.
62. Public prosecutor to chief prosecutor, December 11, 1944. BE RABH, PK Brussels, inv. no. 6426, dossier 16782.
63. Public prosecutor to chief prosecutor, August 30, 1945. BE RABH, PK Brussels, inv. no. 6426, dossier 15741.
64. His superior, however, wanted him to find out whether there were any aggravating circumstances and whether the victim had been sentenced for his presumed collaboration during the occupation. In the end, some of the perpetrators were identified. It turned out that some (but not all) of them had been officially recognized as members of a resistance group. The case was nevertheless dismissed. Public prosecutor to chief prosecutor, March 27, 1945. BE RABH, PK Brussels, inv. no. 6426, dossier 18102.
65. Davies, “Blame and Victims,” 17–18.
66. Bergère, “Pratiques et régulations des violences,” 13–14 and 19.
67. Claes and Krolikowski, “The Limits of Legality in Criminal Law,” 91.
68. Luc Burgelman, “Geschiedenis van de Belgische magistratuur (1830–2002),” 189. Today, it seems more or less accepted that magistrates (particularly those in the public prosecutor’s office) take public opinion into account in their decision-making. This is the case where general policy is concerned and to a lesser extent also in individual cases, although in the latter magistrates are hesitant to accept and admit this. De Bruyn, De magistraat aan het woord, 190–2 and 270.
69. Struye, “Regards sur la repression,” 805–6.
70. Two-hundred and fifty-five of the registered attacks took place in Brussels, although the actual number must be higher. Laplasse and Steen, “Het verzet gewogen,” 9.
71. Zurné, Tussen twee vuren, 199–203.
72. In his PhD dissertation, the Dutch judge and legal scholar Michiel Severein elaborates on the role of the judiciary in the decrease of public disorder caused by collaboration. Severein, Alles is gedaan om het recht te vinden, 97–8.
73. Ganshof van der Meersch, Réflexions sur la répression, 9.
74. For a more in-depth reconstruction of the political situation and conflicts in the immediate post-war period, see: Conway, The Sorrows of Belgium, 62–113.
75. Lagrou, The Legacy of Nazi Occupation, 47.
76. Ibid., 48–52 and 302.
77. For example: De Roode Vaan 5, 8, 12, 28 and March 29, 1945 and Le Drapeau Rouge, March 15, 1945.
78. Circular letter from the Minister of Justice to chief prosecutors, August 17, 1945, http://www.digithemis.be.
79. Legislative proposal “tot herziening van veroordelingen wegens inbreuken gepleegd na 10 mei 1940 en vóór 15 September, 1944”, Kamer van Volksvertegenwoordigers November 14, 1944, http://www.dekamer.be.
80. Decree-law “betreffende de daden die tijdens de vijandelijke bezetting werden gesteld om de actie van den Weerstand te steunen,” June 22, 1945, Belgisch Staatsblad, 4478–81 and decree-law “tot wijziging van de besluitwet van 22 juni 1945 betreffende de daden die tijdens de vijandelijke bezetting werden gesteld om de actie van de weerstand te steunen,” September 20, 1945, Belgisch Staatsblad, 7028–30. This second version of the amnesty law was also not without its faults and often proved difficult to apply in practice. Syx, “L’arrêté-loi du 22 juin 1945,” 79–84.
81. Decree-law June 22, 1945, Belgisch Staatsblad, 4478–81 and decree-law September 20, 1945, Belgisch Staatsblad, 7028–30.
82. Circular letter from Minister of Justice to chief prosecutors on the application of the law of September 20, 1945, October 23, 1945, http://www.digithemis.be.
83. Simon and De Beus, Belgische strafwetten, 133–6.
84. BE RABH, PK Brussels, inv. no. 6426, dossiers 16646, 16745, 17120 and 18044.
85. Both the chief prosecutor and the judge competent in this case agreed. Public prosecutor to chief prosecutor, October 28, 1946 and June 17, 1947. BE RABH, PK Brussels, inv. no. 6426, dossier 16646.
86. BE RABH, PK Brussels, inv. no. 6426, dossier 15490 and State Archives Brussels, Archives hof van beroep/cour d’appel Brussels C transmission 1996, part 1, inv. no. 768.
87. For Italy, see: Cooke, The Legacy of the Italian Resistance, 40–1. For France, see for example: Rousso, Le syndrome de Vichy, 42–3; Daumas, “Georges Guingouin,” 149–66 ; and Laborie, “Entre histoire et mémoire,” 215–35.
88. The court referred to the amnesty law and took into consideration the resistance track record of the accused and the consideration that, “after a long struggle in illegality”, they had not realized that “legal principles were to be reinstated” following the retreat of the Germans. Clercx, “Onder invloed van de bevrijding,” 129–30. Similarly, one year later, resistance organizations and media sided with the suspects of the murder of judge Armand Dupont-Lacroix in November 1944. This time, the accused were convicted, albeit to a relatively mild sentence. See: Thiry, Le tribut des temps troubles, 179–201.
89. On the anti-Communist atmosphere in the judiciary in this period, see: José Gotovitch, “Un procès en guerre froide,” 113–46. On the early Cold War in Belgium and Prime Minister Joseph Pholien’s anti-Communist policy, see: Gérard-Libois and Lewin, La Belgique entre dans la guerre froide, 176–182; Gerard, De Ridder, and Muller, Wie heef Lahaut vermoord? 260–7. On the revelations of fraudulent recognitions of members of resistance groups, see: Lagrou, The Legacy of Nazi Occupation, 51–2.
90. For example: Entre nous, August 1951 and February 1952; Bulletin intérieur de l’armée belge des partisans, September 1951 and Pourquoi pas? July 20, 1951.
91. Brussels State Archives, archive Documentation Instructions Générales Auditorat Général, F110/9.
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Jan Julia Zurné
Jan Julia Zurné is lecturer in Political History at Radboud University Nijmegen. At the Centre for Historical Research and Documentation on War and Contemporary Society (Cegesoma) and Ghent University, she wrote a PhD thesis on the Belgian judiciary during the Second World War. This article is based on a research project funded by the Interuniversity Attraction Pool (IAP) Justice & Populations.