Going back to work under the occupier

In the summer of 1940, the Belgian economy started up again under German administration. Unemployment threatened hundreds of thousands of families, and the occupier — who needed labour — offered work, in Belgium as in Germany. At this stage, departure for the Reich was still presented as voluntary, accompanied by enticing wages and benefits.

For you, the unemployed worker, the dilemma was concrete. To refuse all work connected with the occupier was to preserve your conscience but to risk destitution for your family. To accept a job in Belgium was to earn your living while remaining at home. To leave to work in Germany was the assurance of a wage, but also to serve the enemy war economy directly and to be far from your own.

You had to choose. To accept local work under the occupation in order to support your family. To leave for Germany for a better wage. Or to refuse all employment connected with the occupier and seek other means. What presented itself in 1940 as a free choice would become, from 1942, compulsory labour imposed by force — but that, no one yet knew.