This Cannot Happen Here Studies of the Niod Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies

This Cannot Happen Here studies of the niod institute for war, holocaust and genocide studies This niod series covers peer reviewed studies on war, holocaust and genocide in twentieth century societies, covering a broad range of historical approaches including social, economic, political, diplomatic, intellectual and cultural, and focusing on war, mass violence, anti- Semitism, fascism, colonialism, racism, transitional regimes and the legacy and memory of war and crises. board of editors: Madelon de Keizer Conny Kristel Peter Romijn i Ralf Futselaar — Lard, Lice and Longevity. The standard of living in occupied Denmark and the Netherlands 1940-1945 isbn 978 90 5260 253 0 2 Martijn Eickhoff (translated by Peter Mason) — In the Name of Science? P.J.W. Debye and his career in Nazi Germany isbn 978 90 5260 327 8 3 Johan den Hertog & Samuël Kruizinga (eds.) — Caught in the Middle. Neutrals, neutrality, and the First World War isbn 978 90 5260 370 4 4 Jolande Withuis, Annet Mooij (eds.) — The Politics of War Trauma. The aftermath of World War ii in eleven European countries isbn 978 90 5260 371 1 5 Peter Romijn, Giles Scott-Smith, Joes Segal (eds.) — Divided Dreamworlds? The Cultural Cold War in East and West isbn 978 90 8964 436 7 6 Ben Braber — This Cannot Happen Here. Integration and Jewish Resistance in the Netherlands, 1940-1945 isbn 978 90 8964 483 8 This Cannot Happen Here Integration and Jewish Resistance in the Netherlands, 1940-1945 Ben Braber Amsterdam University Press 2013 This book is published in print and online through the online oapen library (www.oapen.org) oapen (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) is a collaborative initiative to develop and implement a sustainable Open Access publication model for academic books in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The oapen Library aims to improve the visibility and usability of high quality academic research by aggregating peer reviewed Open Access publications from across Europe. Cover illustration: In February 1941 the Germans rounded up several hundred Jewish men in Amsterdam as a reprisal for street fighting, during which a National Socialist was fatally wounded, and an incident, during which allegedly shots were fired at a German patrol. Most of the captured men were killed soon after the round-up. Photograph Beeldbank wo2 – niod. Cover design: Jos Hendrix, Groningen Lay-out: Hanneke Kossen, Amsterdam Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the us and Canada by the University of Chicago Press. isbn 978 90 8964 583 8 e-isbn 978 90 4851 997 2 (pdf) e-isbn 978 90 4851 998 9 (ePub) nur 688 / 716 Creative Commons License cc by nc nd (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) B. Braber / Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2013 Some rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, any part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise). For Finn Contents Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 part i Integration Chapter 1 Attitudes towards Jews and Jewish responses 17 Chapter 2 Participation of Jews in the economy, politics and arts 39 Chapter 3 Changes in Jewish rituals, habits and lifestyles 61 part ii Resistance Chapter 4 Apprehension (May 1940 – December 1940) 83 Chapter 5 Segregation (November 1940 – May 1942) 99 Chapter 6 Deportation (July 1942 – September 1944) 115 Chapter 7 Desperation (July 1942 – May 1945) 141 Conclusion 155 Bibliography 167 Index 181 Acknowledgements I am grateful to the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research for their financial support, which enabled me to work for a year as a part-time Researcher in the Research Department of the niod Institute for War, Holocaust and Geno- cide Studies on the completion of the manuscript for this book. I would also like to thank Peter Romijn, Conny Kristel, Dan Michman, Hans Blom, Madelon de Keizer and Norma Braber-McKinney, who read early drafts of the manuscript. Introduction In one of the first books on the history of Jews in the Netherlands during the Sec- ond World War, published in 1946, Sam de Wolff described how people reacted to being deported. He depicted an early morning scene in Amsterdam – it’s 1942, two years after the Germans invaded the country, and the Nazis have started the deportation of the Jews from the Dutch capital. A group of Jews is getting ready for transportation to a concentration camp. One of them, a young man, starts singing and others join in: Red dawn. Your sacred glow has always brought us the day. Come, you light renewer into man’s dark night. Let your glory give hope to those who struggle in the night. Give them courage in stepping forward until they reach daylight.1 The idea that good prevails over evil returned in De Wolff’s 1954 memoirs when he quoted a poem seen on a mural in the building of the General Dutch Union of Workers in the Diamond Industry: “From misery the flame of resistance arises / The flame of resistance will devour the misery”.2 De Wolff mentioned this quote in his memoirs to explain how it was expected during the first half of the twentieth century that resistance to social misery would result in a regeneration of the Jewish masses. The idea of ending misery was of course also used to encourage the organisation of Jewish workers into trade unions and to promote Socialism. However, both quotations emphasise contemporary hopes, in the case of the first quote a Jewish revival, in the second a rise from social deprivation. 1 De Wolff, Geschiedenis der Joden in Nederland, p. 95. Compare Gans, Memorboek, p. 576. Apart from where in- dicated differently, the author has translated the text quoted in this book from Dutch and German sources. 2 De Wolff, Voor het Land van Belofte, p. 113. The poem is by Henriëtte Roland Holst. 1 2 | This Cannot Happen Here De Wolff’s quotes raise numerous questions, including the following. Did suf- fering automatically cause resistance? What forms did that resistance take? Why did it take these forms? Where they influenced by group traits or individual con- ditions? And, more specifically, how were Jewish reactions to persecution during the German occupation of the Netherlands determined by the social position of the Jews? This book aims to provide at least part of the answer to that last question by examining Jewish resistance in the Netherlands during the Second World War within the context of the integration of Jews3 into Dutch society and the personal circumstances of those who took part in Jewish resistance. Historiography and definition of Jewish resistance This book uses a wide and inclusive definition of Jewish resistance. In doing so, it follows the existing literature. That historiography stretches back to the first years after the Second World War. Initially, it concentrated on armed uprisings. Then history writing moved on from an emotional and political debate with entrenched notions about how much resistance there was to a consensus among historians that Jewish resistance should be defined in broad terms. Views gradually became more balanced, enabling us, as Stone has written, to discuss Jewish resistance without over-emphasising its occurrence or, by implication, denigrating those who could or would not take part.4 Furthermore, rather than in isolation, resistance is now usually examined within the context of an exploration of the life of Jews under National Socialist domination. Establishing a consensus on a definition of Jewish resistance has taken several decades. Shortly after the Second World War popular writing dedicated to this sub- ject centred mostly on ghetto uprisings and armed struggles in Eastern Europe. It often glorified individual and group acts in contrast to alleged collaboration or what was perceived as the passive behaviour of those who did not resist. During the next decade several academic historians joined the discussion. In his 1957 contribution, Dinur suggested that the National Socialists overestimated Jewish 3 To determine who can be regarded as a Jew, this book follows Alderman, Modern British Jewry, pp. 1-2, who has defined as Jewish any person who considered or considers him or herself to be such, or who was or is regarded as such by his or her contemporaries. Compare Schöffer, “Introduction”, p. 11. 4 Stone, “Introduction”, p. 5. See also Stone, History, Memory and Mass Atrocity, pp. vii, x, 246-247. The over- view of the historiography of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust in this book is not comprehensive and concentrates on literature on Western Europe. Where possible it uses books and articles accessible to an Eng- lish-speaking audience. For a comprehensive review of the historiography see Rozett, “Jewish Resistance”, in Stone (ed.), The Historiography of the Holocaust. See also Bloxham, Kushner (eds), The Holocaust. For works on general resistance, see Hawes, White (eds), Resistance in Europe, 1939-1945; Moore (ed.), Resistance in Western Europe; Semelin, Unarmed against Hitler. Introduction | 3 participation in general resistance, while the Allies trivialised the participation of Jews in the fight against the Axis powers. A year later Friedman stressed the need for a broad definition of resistance, which surpassed acts of self-interest and included spiritual courage. In 1960 Dinur illustrated his earlier suggestion by list- ing examples of resistance.5 Initially, Dinur’s and Friedman’s work did not have a great public impact. How- ever, in the early 1960s three publications brought the debate to a head: Bettel- heim’s The Informed Heart, Hilberg’s The Destruction of the European Jews and Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem.6 These three works stressed the passiveness of the victims of the Holocaust.

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