Journal of Belgian History, LIV, 2024, 1

After a year with several thematic issues, the first issue of volume 2024 once again contains four separate contributions. In the first article, Dorien Styven (archivist at Kazerne Dossin) and Veerle Vanden Daelen (curator and coordinator of collections and research at Kazerne Dossin) seek to explain the so-called 'Antwerp specificity' during the Second World War. This is based on the observation that the number of Jews deported from Antwerp was significantly higher than the Belgian average. The second article (in Dutch) was written by the young historian Felix Deckx (FWO candidate at the KU Leuven). In his contribution, he studies the impact of the so-called Sulphone therapy on three Belgian-Congolese leprosaria in the Equatorial Province (1940-1960) and analyses the evolution from the gradual domination of religious centres to government control and scientification. The third article (in English) is by Pascal Delwit, Professor in the Department of Political Science at ULB. He analyses the first post-war municipal elections in 1946, taking a critical look at the very relative victory of the Communist Party of Belgium. The fourth article, also in French, is by a young researcher who is publishing his revised master's thesis in the form of an article. Brice Prince, a research associate at ULB's Maison de Sciences Humaines, retraces the history of the 'Œuvre de Secours pour les Victimes de la Guerre en Belgique', the Canadian component of international solidarity for Belgium during and immediately after the First World War.