Top Photo: A group of Dutch resistance members and hidden Jews crowded into a room, possibly listening to a clandestine radio. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Hans Aussen.

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Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands on May 10, 1940, stunning the country with a surprise aerial attack. As German paratroopers descended, the Netherlands was forced to relinquish its status as a neutral country to resist invasion. They blew up bridges, hoping to slow the enemy down, and defended their country as best they could; however, the Germans were better prepared, having planned this attack for months, and vastly outnumbered the Dutch. In less than a week, the Netherlands surrendered, Queen Wilhelmina fled to England, and Arthur Seyss-Inquart, a high-ranking member of the Nazi Party, was installed as Reich Commissar of the Netherlands.

Seyss-Inquart wasted little time instating antisemitic policies. Starting in September 1940, he issued an order that Jews could no longer work in the civil service, including government appointments; serve in the military; nor hold university lectureships. The issue with this proclamation was that it was difficult to determine who exactly was Jewish. Instead of resorting to Nazi racial laws, as put in place in the Reich and the General Government (western Poland), Seyss-Inquart demanded that all Jews register with the local registry office, including converts and children of mixed marriages.

While the registration process had been advertised as merely a bureaucratic formality, the proceedings of the following month would prove the sinister intentions behind them. In Amsterdam, where half of the Netherlands’ Jewish population lived, the Nazis set up a Jewish quarter in the Jordaan neighborhood, where they concentrated the Jewish population, segregating them from the rest of the city. In late January and early February, the Nazis and their Dutch collaborators marched into the quarter, harassing Jews, provoking fights, and forcing Gentile cafés and restaurants to put up signs reading “Jews not wanted.” In an ice cream parlor, the Nazis instigated a particularly violent brawl, in which local Jews and their neighbors defended themselves. When all was said and done, the parlor was destroyed and one Nazi was killed. In retribution, the SS chief of police ordered 400 Jewish men to be arrested and sent to the concentration camps Mauthausen and Buchenwald.

News of these arrests spread throughout the city, sparking rage and powerlessness. The locals refused to stand by idly as this happened in their once peaceful city. They organized a general strike, beginning in working-class areas and spreading throughout the city. As the trains came to a halt on February 25, 1941, the occupying powers took notice. Enraged, the Nazis ordered people back to work and inflicted violence on those marching in the street. Within a few days, the strike collapsed.

Despite the show of solidarity, little came of one of the only mass protests in Europe against the mistreatment of Jews. In February and March 1941, over 15,000 Jewish men were sent to Westerbork, a transit camp, and to forced labor camps in the Netherlands. The following year, when Jews were forced to wear the yellow star on their clothing, further acts of solidarity were made. Many Dutch Jews recall passers-by taking off their hats and saying to them, “Keep courage,” “This shall soon pass,” and “You should be proud to wear that star.”

But as the transports to Westerbork and further east continued, Dutch Jews began to fear for their lives. On June 30, 1942, all male Jews ages 16 to 40 were required to report for transfer to Westerbork. On August 6, all Jews, regardless of age or gender, were required to report. When they arrived in Westerbork, many people did their best to keep their spirits up. They created kindergartens, orphanages, and youth groups to distract and protect the children at the camp. They forged identity papers, worked together to create more habitable spaces, invented new recipes with their meager rations, and shared news. The most important news was about where the deportation trains were headed.

Those still in Amsterdam heard rumors about Westerbork, concentration camps in the East, and gassings. Unsure what to believe, many Jewish people in Amsterdam weighed their options. Some considered fleeing the country. When this proved too costly and too dangerous an option, they were left with only one other: hiding.

Hiding was extremely difficult for Jews. They were competing for hiding spots with around 300,000 other people, mainly resistance fighters and young men who had been called up for forced labor, and they were much riskier to take on. Dutch Jews were not issued ration cards, had lost most of their money when their businesses were taken or their jobs lost, and their concealment carried a harsher legal penalty if caught. In spite of these risks, however, over 200,000 Dutch families stepped up to take in onderduikers, people who went into hiding.

As Jews were not allowed on public transport and were bound by a curfew, they had to find clever ways of leaving their registered addresses and making it to their new hiding place. They escaped from the Jewish quarter in delivery carts, trucks, and coffins, and were picked up by police cars driven by resistance workers and thrust out the front gate when police officers were not looking. Once at their hiding place, they often had to provide a code word or half of a ripped sheet to prove that they were the correct person and not an infiltrator. Most onderduikers arrived alone to avoid arousing suspicion. As many families could only plausibly host one person at a time, Jewish onderduikers were often separated from their families. Additionally, as resistance networks were picked off by the police, many of those in hiding were forced to relocate, if another hiding place was available. The average number of hiding places per person during the war was four and a half; the number was higher for women, who were often sexually exploited by those hiding them. The Frank family, the most famous group that went into hiding, was an outlier in this respect: they had one hiding place until their discovery and arrest in August 1944. Of the nearly 30,000 Jewish people in hiding in the Netherlands, around 12,000 were arrested and sent to prison or concentration camps. Some were betrayed by neighbors and paid informants, while others were discovered by police raids.

Other forms of resistance were popular among Jewish residents, though their potential consequences were grave. Underground newspapers spread through the city, encouraging sabotage and disobedience. In 1940, Gideon and Jan Karel Boissevain established the CS6 resistance group, which produced bombs used to sabotage trains, steal ration cards, and kill Nazis. While the organization was infiltrated and rounded up in late 1943, they nonetheless made an impact and actively resisted the Nazi regime.

Though they resisted in many ways, Amsterdam’s Jewish population suffered immensely in World War II. By September 3, 1944, the day the last train departed Westerbork for Auschwitz, 107,000 Jews had been deported from the Netherlands. In the end, only 5,200 survived the Holocaust.