Cardinal van Roey intervened with the authorities to rescue Jews from the Nazis, and encouraged various institutions to aid Jewish children. One of his acts of rescue was to open a geriatric centre in which Jews were housed, at which kosher Jewish cooks would be required who could therefore be given special passes protecting them from deportation. On 24 September 1942 Cardinal Van Roey and Queen Elizabeth both intervened with the German authorities in Brussels after the arrest of six leading members of the Jewish community. As a result, five were released. The sixth, Edward Rotbel, Secretary of the Belgian Jewish Community, was a Hungarian citizen, and could not be saved from deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau.