MOSCOW, January 25 - RAPSI. The Belgian Senate has unanimously approved a resolution recognizing the country's responsibility for the persecution and the deportation of the country's Jews during World War II, local media reported on Friday.

From 1942 to 1944, the Nazis and the Belgian authorities deported 30,000 Jews from Belgium to concentration camps in Eastern Europe, and specifically to Auschwitz.
Only about 1,000 of the deported Jews survived.

Thousands of families fled to Belgium in the 1930s to save themselves from Nazi persecution.

According to media reports, approximately 70,000 Jews lived in the country before WWII. Today, their number amounts to roughly 35,000-40,000.

The resolution states that the Belgian authorities wrongly collaborated with the German forces to persecute the Jews, which led to disastrous consequences. The Belgian Senate has urged the authorities to provide a deportation victim status to the Jews and the Romani who suffered as a result, as well as their orphan children.

A special research held by the government established Belgium's participation in the deportation of the Jews during WWII and was made public in 2007.