Thamyris/Intersecting No. 27 (2014) 71–100

“They Have Forgotten to Gas You”: Post-1945 Antisemitism in the Netherlands

Evelien Gans

Introduction: The Identification of Jews and Gas It is hard to determine how many fights took place between Jews and Gentiles in Amsterdam immediately after the Second World War. Barend de Hond, a Jewish mar- ket dealer and bricklayer, was taken to court several times because he did not toler- ate people making antisemitic remarks. The man who told De Hond he hated Jews like poison ended up in the gutter with a broken jaw, not realizing that he was dealing with an amateur wrestler. Looking back during an interview, De Hond said that, after the war, antisemitism returned (Bregstein en Bloemgarten 322–23).1 He knew, of course, that antisemitism had never disappeared—on the contrary. In the preceding years, the Nazis murdered more than 100,000 out of 140,000: 75% of all Jews liv- ing in the Netherlands—a considerably higher percentage than in any other occupied West European country (Brasz 351–52). Obviously, De Hond meant that Dutch anti- semitism was back again. Actually, during the German occupation, anti-Jewish preju- dice among the Dutch population had increased, a development that was recorded in the illegal press. After the liberation, prejudice burst into the open, getting a fresh impetus from the specific circumstances of Dutch after-war society (Gans, “Vandaag hebben ze niets”; Hondius, Terugkeer). Definitely new was the profanity “They have forgotten to gas you,” the post-1945 anti-Jewish stereotype that represented Jews as being fit only to be gassed; a good Jew is a dead Jew. This exact phrase made another Dutch-Jewish survivor, the pickle conserver Emmanuel Aalsvel, attack a man who insulted him, which subsequently landed him in court, and after that, brought him to Israel (Aalsvel).

“They Have Forgotten to Gas You”: Post-1945 Antisemitism in the Netherlands | 71 Since 1945, the remark “Ze zijn vergeten je te vergassen” [They have forgotten to gas you], has been popping up as an aggressive and vulgar antisemitic insult during escalating fights and quarrels in the streets, in the pubs, on trams and buses, between parking motorists, and in brawls on the telephone. Then, some forty years later, it went public—in a slightly different format, and in a most distinct cultural and political setting. At the end of the seventies, football hooliganism made its entry into the Netherlands. Supporters of the professional football clubs in the big cities (mainly Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Den Haag en Utrecht) fought each other, both physi- cally and with provocative chants. In the eighties, specific slogans were directed against the Amsterdam football club Ajax: “Let’s hunt the Jews” (Wij gaan op joden- jacht) and “Death to the Jews.” Ajax had a Jewish imago, not so much because of its players (though some were Jewish), but mainly because of its location, supporters and popularity in the eastern part of Amsterdam, where many Jews had lived during the decennia before they were deported (Kuper, Ajax, de joden; Kuper, Ajax, the Dutch, the War). For their part, Ajax supporters turned the contemptuous title of “Jew’s club” into an honorary one, crying, “We are Jews,” “The Jews will be the champions,” and carrying flags with the Star of David. They provoked their “enemies” by calling them “peasants,” or inciting to bomb Rotterdam (a catastrophe which had befallen Rotterdam on 14 May 1940, during the German attack). The identification between “Jews” and “gas” presented itself when Ajax supporters were (and are) faced with hissing sounds, referring to gas finding its way into the gas chamber. At the same time, a proper political element crept into the confrontations. Against the Israeli flag, carried by Ajax supporters, the backing of Feyenoord (Rotterdam’s club) set Palestinian flags. From the mid-nineties on, the slogan “Hamas, Hamas, alle Joden aan het gas” (Hamas, Hamas, all the Jews to the gas) was raised at the galleries of Feyenoord and FC Utrecht. (“We gaan op jodenjacht,” Kroniek). In 2003, hundreds of supporters of FC Utrecht were sent home without having watched their team play: upon their arrival at the Central Station of Amsterdam, they were yelling this same phrase. The slogan had also become popular among segments of Dutch Muslim youth, who identified themselves with the Palestinians in the so-called (occu- pied) territories. The football hooligans probably introduced the anti-Jewish rhyme, which the Muslim youngsters adopted—though the chemistry between the two groups is a subject for further research. In October and November 2000, in the wake of the second Intifada (the Palestinian uprising against Israel), several small and large groups of Moroccan boys and youngsters have been reported to chant the slogan, “Hamas, Hamas, alle Joden aan het gas” (CIDI Israel Nieuwsbrief). A period starts in which, in certain parts of certain Amsterdam neighborhoods, rabbis and other Jews who are recognizable as Jews, are at times being abused, molested, and sometimes physically attacked (Gans, “De strijd tegen het antisemitisme”). These manifestations proved that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict definitively had been

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