Belgium Belgium Belgium officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Western Europe bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to the southwest, and the North Sea to the northwest. It covers an area of and has a population of more than 11.4 million. The capital and largest city is Brussels; other major cities are Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi and Liège. The sovereign state of Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. Its institutional organisation is complex and is structured on both regional and linguistic grounds. It
The Holocaust in Belgium to Auschwitz. Between August 1942 and July 1944, around 25,000 Jews and 350 Roma were deported from Belgium; more than 24,000 were killed before the camps were liberated by the Allies. From 1942, opposition among the general population to the treatment of the Jews in Belgium grew. By the end of the occupation, more than 40 per cent of all Jews in Belgium were in hiding; many of them were hidden by Gentiles, particularly by Catholic priests and nuns. Some were helped by the organized resistance, such as the (CDJ; "Committee of Jewish Defense"), which provided food and refuge to