Paul-Émile Janson was a francophone Belgian liberal politician and the prime minister from 1937 to 1938. During the German occupation, he was arrested as a political prisoner and died in a German concentration camp in 1944.

The German occupation of Belgium during World War II began on 28 May 1940, when the Belgian army surrendered to German forces, and lasted until Belgium's liberation by the Western Allies between September 1944 and February 1945. It was the second time in less than thirty years that Germany had occupied Belgium.