Following my post on how anti-Semitism has entered the world of sports I have had some reactions from readers on the fate of the Dutch Jews during the Second World War as together with Poland, The Netherlands is one of the countries that lost the highest percentage of its Jewish population to the Holocaust and many wonder why that is the case.

There are a number of reasons behind this. Off the top of my head the first one that comes to mind is that Dutch society is highly organized, structured and everything is very well documented. It was therefore not too difficult for the Germans to figure out who was Jewish and who wasn’t once they succeeded in getting access to civil records or any other files that meticulously recorded people’s names, backgrounds, religion, addresses etc. This is also one of the key reasons why so many Dutch are vehemently opposed to any form of personal identity cards or databases that store large amounts of personal data. It is interesting that in these days of terrorism and security we are building up enormous databases, being totally oblivious to the potential future abuse of these data particularly in North America where there has been no experience with foreign occupiers that abuse information for discrimination, segregation and, ultimately, genocide.

Documenting by the way is a very important Dutch skill. When, during WW II, my grandfather became part of one of the early resistance movements in the western part of the country, the group immediately resolved to make a list of all the members: better to know who is part of the team and where we can find him or her in case of need. Needless to say, that list somehow fell into the hands of the German occupier and before my grandfather could get into action he was dispatched to Buchenwald, a concentration camp in Germany, which he survived.

Another reason is that The Netherlands is a small and seriously flat country. Refugees, escaped prisoners and resistance fighters had an infinitely better chance of survival in impenetrable mountainous and forested areas elsewhere in Europe. The partisans in Yugoslavia and the maquis in France are good examples of groups who used the rugged territory in their countries as an effective launch pad to attack the German enemy. At the same time these vast and wild areas of land acted as a great shelter for refugees, including Jews. In the case of Eastern Europe the natural surroundings enabled both, as a number of Jewish partisan groups emerged in Poland and the former Soviet Union. So, together with the available databases from the Dutch government and very detailed maps of a flat and developed country it was extremely difficult to hide from a force that went house to house in search of innocents to be transported to a certain death.

The third reason is that Dutch Jews were in comparison to Eastern and Southern European Jews not very well prepared for what was awaiting them. Other European Jews were well accustomed to anti-Semitism, pogroms, hate and random violence and had learned to build up certain natural defenses. Although that was certainly not a guarantee for survival, it gave them a somewhat better chance to stay alive in concentration camps. Holland was a safe haven for persecuted Jews from other parts of Europe where Jews had come to live in safety without the fear of persecution. With that risk disappearing it can be inferred that their natural in-built defenses also weakened a bit, if I were put in a similar situation I would be less prepared than someone from an area where discrimination and violence are a daily occurrence.

The final reason is one about which it is not easy to make an assessment and that is the level of compliance, or even co-operation, offered by the Dutch to their German occupiers. I have grown up being told that all Dutch were heroes and that we bravely resisted the Fuhrer and his henchman but in all likelihood that was not really the case as it applied to only a very small group of people who risked their lives and the lives of their families in doing so. The ones who directly co-operated were probably also limited in terms of numbers, but yes, it was a sizeable group. The biggest portion of Dutchmen and women most likely kept their heads down and practiced their own mode of survival, which essentially meant doing nothing about anything and hoping for a quick end to the war.

If we add these four factors together I think we are able to understand why the chances of survival for a Dutch Jew where significantly lower than that for a French Jew, Czech Jew or Greek Jew. There are however many stories of survival and here is one that I recommend reading. I found it when I did a bit of background research for ‘Soccer in Mokum’. Go read it.