Holocaust in the Netherlands

In the early decades of the 20th century, the Netherlands and Amsterdam in particular were important centers for Jewish settlement. The Jewish communities of Amsterdam and other large cities grew rapidly ^[2] .

Before the occupation began, about 140 thousand Jews lived in the Netherlands. Of these, 121.4 thousand people belonged to the Ashkenazi community, 4.3 - to the Sephardic community, 12.4 were not members of religious communities. In addition, 1900 baptized Jews and about 30 thousand Jewish refugees from Germany , Austria and Czechoslovakia lived in the country ^[1] .

For illegal Jewish immigrants fleeing Nazi persecution, the government set up a camp in Westerbork in February 1939, which the Nazis later turned into a concentration camp . The refugee camp was maintained at the expense of a Jewish public organization - the “Committee for Special Jewish Affairs” ^[1] .

Occupation

On May 10, 1940, German troops invaded Holland , and on May 14, German aircraft bombed Rotterdam . Queen Wilhelmina and members of the government flew to the UK , and on May 15, the commander-in-chief of the Dutch army, General Hendrik Winkelmann signed the surrender . Already on this day, about 200 Jewish refugees from Germany committed suicide ^{[2] [3]} .

The country was occupied, a pro-German puppet government was created, headed by Anton Mussert . The Reich Commissioner of the Netherlands was appointed Arthur Seyss-Inquart .

Persecution of Jews

The Nazis limited the participation of Jews in the economy and public life and systematically persecuted them during 1940-1941. In August 1940, a decree appeared that banned the “ brutal practice of slaughtering livestock, ” against the religious demands of Judaism . In September, Jews were forbidden to live in a number of areas and engage in certain professions. In October, all public servants were ordered to undergo an “Aryan certification,” in which Jews were counted separately from other employees. At the same time, a decree was issued on the registration of Jewish property, which became the first step towards its expropriation , and in November all civil servants and teachers of Jewish origin were dismissed. Many Dutch people protested against this discrimination, including publicly ^{[1] [4]} .

In June 1941, a general registration of the population was carried out, under which the stamp “J” was put on the passports of the Jews. Since the fall of 1941, Jews were forbidden to visit many public places, and property was taken ^[4] . In February, by order of the Germans, a Jewish Council was created, initially responsible for the Jews of Amsterdam, and from October 7, 1941 - for the whole country ^[1] .

Clashes began between collaborators - members of the National Socialist Movement (NSD) and Jewish self-defense units. In one of these clashes, an activist of the NSD Coot died in February. In response, on February 22, the Germans cordoned off the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam and took 400 people hostage ^[5] .

Jewish hostages were sent to the Buchenwald camp , and then to Mauthausen , where they died from overwork and brutal bullying, only one of them survived. This was the reason for the international scandal, as the Jewish Council of the Netherlands sent a protest to neutral Sweden , which demanded that Germany verify the conditions of detention of Mauthausen prisoners ^[5] .

In 1942, the persecution intensified. On March 21, Jews were forbidden to drive in cars, except for " ambulance ", official transport of invaders and hearse . On May 8, a decree was issued on the mandatory wearing by Jews older than 6 years of the " yellow star ". On June 12, there was a ban on practicing any kind of physical education and outdoor sports; purchases in non-Jewish stores were allowed to be made only from 15 to 17 hours ^[6] . The Germans also set up 42 labor camps for Jews. About 7,500 Jews from 85 cities were sent to these camps (2,500 were subsequently released) ^[7] .

Deportation to death camps

In the summer of 1942, the Nazis began mass arrests of Jews and their sending to death camps . The Westerbrock concentration camp became a transit camp for sending Jews east, mainly to Auschwitz 2 (Auschwitz) and Sobibor .

The first train to Auschwitz was sent on July 16, 1942, the last - on September 3, 1944. In total, 60,026 people were deported by 65 trains, of which only 1,052 survived. In total, 22% of Dutch Jews survived in concentration camps ^[8] .

The effective work of the state apparatus in the Netherlands (officials, police, railway workers) contributed to the mass death of Jews ^{[9] [10]} .

In the Netherlands, the main form of resistance was sabotage and assistance to the Allied armies (in particular, intelligence information). There was no mass guerrilla war both in France and all the more so as in Poland or the USSR in the Netherlands ^[11] . However, three Jewish underground groups in the Netherlands committed sabotage on highways. About a hundred armed underground members put up serious resistance to the Nazis when combing the so-called. The Jewish Quarter in Amsterdam. Only 7 people survived from them ^[12] .

7,000 Dutch Jews fought in the Allied armies ^[13] , including 3,000 serving in the Dutch army ^[14] .

On February 25, 1941, the Dutch Resistance carried out a general strike in protest against the Jewish pogroms and the seizure of Jewish hostages. The strike swept almost all of Holland and was brutally crushed by the Germans. Four leaders were executed, hundreds of participants were sent to prisons and concentration camps ^{[15] [5]} .

On July 11, 1942, a telegram arrived in all the Christian communities of the country with the text of the sermon, compiled jointly by the leaders of the Protestant and Catholic communities, and which was planned to be read on July 26. The sermon text was a protest against persecution of Jews. After the threat of Zeiss-Inquart that if such a sermon was read, then all baptized Jews would be deported, the Protestant leaders canceled the reading, and the Catholic read. From July 27 to July 31, 1942, 4 thousand Catholic Jews were deported to the east ^[16] .

Many Dutch at risk for their lives took part in the rescue of Jews. As of January 1, 2016, 5516 residents of the Netherlands for the salvation of Jews were recognized by the Israeli Institute for Catastrophe and Heroism Yad Vashem as the righteous of the world . The Netherlands takes the second place after Poland in the total number of righteous people ^[17] .

In Amsterdam, Henriett Waut, Gisela Viberdink-Sönlein and other underground activists rescued Jewish children who were in a gathering place to be sent to a transit camp and then deported to extermination camps ^[18] .

A unique case was recorded in the village of Nyivland : the assembly of residents decided that everyone living in the village should save at least one Jew - thus the risk of denunciation was minimized. All adult villagers in the amount of 117 people were recognized as the Righteous of the peoples of the world . The leaders of the operation were Johannes Post and Arnold Dawes ^[19] .

In modern Dutch society, the memory of the events of the Holocaust is preserved through a series of targeted programs. Actualization of the Holocaust is formulated as the development of tolerance . There are a number of museums and memorials dedicated to this topic, in particular the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam ^[20] . In the Netherlands, as in other European countries affected by the Nazis, the Gunter Demnig project " Stumbling Stones " is being implemented. Special commemorative stones are installed in many Dutch cities ^[21] . The Netherlands is a member of the International Organization for Cooperation in the Perpetuation and Study of the Holocaust (ITF) ^[22]

A high percentage of deaths of Dutch Jews (many times more than Denmark or Belgium ) has been the subject of special studies in historical literature and public debate. In Dutch society, the book of Isa Vössier is actively discussed, in which he claims that not only Jews, but also the Dutch government in London knew about the massacres, but did not make these facts public. According to Veissier, such publicity could significantly affect the situation ^[23] . In the book “To Prevent the Worst,” Nanda van der See writes that Queen Wilhelmina in her speeches on Radio Orange from London did not mention the persecution of Jews ^[10] .

In the underground shelter in Amsterdam , the world-famous diary of Anne Frank was written - a record of a Jewish girl who was later issued to the Nazis and who died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp . The diary of Etti Hillesum , who died in Auschwitz , also gained fame.

• Jacques Presser is a Dutch historian, writer, and poet, known for his book on the persecution of Dutch Jews during World War II.

• Report and Weekend of the Holocaust. Ukraine, Netherlands, Belgium. Zbirnik materials of the international project "History of the Holocaust in Ukraine and Lower Lands". - Kyiv: Spirit i Litera, 2010 .-- 396 p. - ISBN 978-966-378-145-7 .
• Abel Jacob Herzberg. Kroniek der jodenvervolging, 1940-1945. - 3. - Meulenhoff, 1978. - 283 p. - ISBN 9789029009676 . (nid.)
• Jacques Presser. Ondergang De vervolging en verdelging van het Nederlandse jodendom 1940-1945 . - Gravenhage, 1985 .-- T. 1-2. - ISBN 9789012048934 . (nid.)
• Yohanan Meroz. Netherlands, the // Encyclopaedia Judaica / Ed. Fred Skolnik , Michael Berenbaum . - Second edition. - Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. - Vol. 15 (Nat-Per). - P. 93-110. - ISBN 978-0-02-865943-5 .

• Anne Frank Museum Amsterdam - the official Anne Frank House website . annefrank.org. Date of treatment June 2, 2012. Archived on August 30, 2012.
• Digital Monument to the Jewish Community in the Netherlands . joodsmonument.nl. Date of treatment June 2, 2012. Archived on August 30, 2012.
• Holocaust in Nederland: 'We hebben het écht niet geweten' (nid.) . Universiteit Leiden . Date of treatment June 2, 2012. Archived on August 30, 2012.