Latest / The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History / The 1926 Flemish Concentration Camp: Belgium's Other Colonial Crime
Transcript
- Lucas: So in our last episode we talked about the 1921 Kitawala movement and how the Belgian authorities cracked down on independent religious expression in the Congo. But what I didn't mention is that the crackdown didn't stop in the Congo itself. It followed Congolese men all the way to Belgium. Luna: Wait, they sent Congolese people to Belgium as punishment? Lucas: Not exactly as punishment in the legal sense, but yes. In 1926, the colonial administration opened a 'reeducation camp' at Opgrimbie, a small village in the Flemish province of Limburg. The official purpose was to 'civilize' young Congolese men—most of them former soldiers of the Force Publique—by immersing them in Belgian language, religion, and work habits. Luna: A camp for Congolese men in Belgium. I've never heard of this. Lucas: It's one of those stories that's been almost completely buried. The camp was the brainchild of Father Raphaël de la Kethulle, a Catholic missionary who had spent years in the Congo and was a strong believer in the idea that Africans could be 'raised' to European standards if removed from their own culture. He convinced the government to fund a facility where Congolese men would be taught Dutch, French, and practical trades—carpentry, farming, blacksmithing—all under strict discipline. Luna: So it was like a boarding school, but for adults? Lucas: That's how it was sold. But the reality was much harsher. The men were housed in barracks, forbidden to speak their own languages, and subjected to a daily routine of prayer, lessons, and manual labor that started at 5 AM. Any defiance was met with solitary confinement or beatings. Several men tried to escape, and some died from illness or mistreatment. Luna: And these were men who had served Belgium in the Force Publique? Lucas: Exactly. Many of them had fought in the Belgian army during World War I, in campaigns in East Africa against the Germans. They had been promised rewards and pensions. Instead, they were sent to Opgrimbie—essentially because colonial officials saw them as a threat. After the Kitawala uprising and the 1922 Elisabethville riots, the authorities worried that these veterans, with their military training and their experience of the world, might become leaders of resistance. So they brought them to Belgium to 'reeducate' them. Luna: It sounds like they were being punished for being too capable. Lucas: That's exactly the logic. The camp was also a way to create a model African—someone who would go back to the Congo and be a docile, compliant subject. But the plan backfired. The conditions at Opgrimbie became known to humanitarians and journalists in Belgium. There were articles in newspapers like 'De Volksgazet' and 'Le Soir' describing the camp as a 'concentration camp'—that phrase was used as early as 1927. Luna: So there was a scandal. Lucas: A growing scandal. The government tried to defend it, but by 1930 the pressure was too great. The camp was closed, and the remaining inmates were sent back to the Congo. But the episode left a bitter taste. For the men who had been through it, it was a betrayal. They had served Belgium, and Belgium had imprisoned them. Luna: It's interesting that you mention the press calling it a concentration camp. That term was used later for Nazi camps, but here it's being applied to a Belgian colonial project. Lucas: Exactly. The term 'concentration camp' originally comes from the Spanish colonial wars in Cuba and the British camps in the Boer War. So it was already in circulation. But the fact that Belgian journalists used it to describe Opgrimbie shows that even at the time, people recognized the brutality of what was happening. Luna: And after the camp closed, did anyone talk about it? Lucas: Not really. The story was quietly forgotten. Most histories of Belgian colonialism skip it entirely. It wasn't until the 1990s that Belgian historians like Mathieu Zana Etambala began to uncover the archives and bring the story to light. Even today, there's no monument at Opgrimbie. The site is now a nature reserve. Luna: A nature reserve where a camp used to be. That's a kind of erasure, isn't it? Lucas: It is. And it's part of a larger pattern—Belgium's colonial legacy is full of these buried stories. We've talked about the rubber terror, the Force Publique atrocities, the human zoos. But Opgrimbie is different. It happened on Belgian soil. It was a direct importation of colonial violence into Europe. Luna: And it targeted the very people who had been used to enforce colonial rule. Lucas: Right. The Force Publique soldiers were the backbone of the colonial state. They carried out the brutal quotas for rubber and ivory. They suppressed rebellions. And then, when they became inconvenient, they were shipped to Belgium and locked up. It's a stark illustration of how the colonial system consumed its own agents. Luna: If you've been stepping into history with us episode by episode, you know these conversations—about Belgium, about Europe's colonial past—don't get the attention they deserve. We keep this show ad-free because we think this history matters, and listener support on buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo is what makes that possible. Lucas: Yeah, exactly. And if you're able to throw a coffee our way, it helps us keep digging into these stories—like Opgrimbie—that don't make it into the textbooks. No pressure, just if the show means something to you. Luna: And speaking of textbooks, the Opgrimbie camp raises a question: were there other such camps in Belgium? Lucas: As far as we know, Opgrimbie was the only one. But there were other, smaller projects. For example, the colonial administration also brought Congolese children to Belgium for education—the so-called 'évolués' program. Some of those children were housed in institutions that were also quite strict. But Opgrimbie was unique in its scale and its explicit goal of reeducation through forced labor. Luna: What happened to the men after they were released? Lucas: Most were sent back to the Congo. A few stayed in Belgium and tried to build lives—working as servants or laborers. But they were under constant surveillance. The colonial administration kept files on them, tracking their movements and their political activities. One of the most famous former inmates was a man named Paul Panda Farnana, who we've mentioned before in the context of the 1900 Brussels Exposition. He had been a vocal critic of colonial abuses, and he was sent to Opgrimbie in 1927. After his release, he continued to write and speak out until his death in 1930. Luna: So even the camp couldn't silence him. Lucas: It couldn't. And that's important. The men at Opgrimbie were not passive victims. There are records of protests, hunger strikes, and escape attempts. One group managed to get a letter to a Belgian lawyer, which helped spark the press campaign. They used the very tools of Belgian justice that they had been taught to fight back. Luna: That's a powerful legacy. Lucas: It is. And it's a reminder that even in the darkest chapters of colonial history, there were people who resisted, who refused to be broken. The Opgrimbie camp is a small story, but it tells us a lot about the logic of colonialism—and the seeds of its undoing.