Anvers sous l'occupation, 1940-1945

Drawing largely from the rich photographic collections of CegeSoma (mainly from the collections of the official German propaganda photographer Otto Kropf, the Antwerp amateur and resistance photographer Louis Pighini and the collaborationist press agency Sipho) but also from public and private collections, this book depicts in text and mainly through images the brutal and at the same time banal life of the great port city and its inhabitants from the time of the invasion until the German surrender.

Reviewing in turn the beginning of the occupation, the power issues at stake, the daily life, the engagement in collaboration and resistance, the persecutions and the Liberation, the authors focus in particular on what made Antwerp special in these troubled times : the continuation for much of the occupation of pre-war communal power, the persecution of the Jews, the havoc caused by German flying bombs after the Liberation, and the port's crucial role in 1945 as bridgehead for the Allied armies in Western Europe.

While a majority of the population anonymously tried to survive and the occupier, with the help of collaborators, tried to give the impression that life was going normally, another part of the population was the target of violence, deported or sent to forced labor ...

A better look, through photography, at the history of Antwerp and its agglomeration during 1940-1945.