Why did the Netherlands' Jewish population have such a high percentage killed in the Holocaust?

[Futurist]

Why did the Netherlands' Jewish population have such a high percentage killed in the Holocaust? After all, based on this chart, the Netherlands' Holocaust Jewish death toll (percentage-wise) was extremely high for a Western European country (excluding Germany and Austria, for obvious reasons) :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust#Jewish

Indeed, why did such an extremely large percentage of the Netherlands' Jewish population perish in the Holocaust?

Any thoughts on this?

[Futurist]

Also, here is a list of various European countries by their Jewish Holocaust death toll based on these countries' 1933 Jewish population:

http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/ ... oogle.com/

On both of these lists, though, the Netherlands's Jewish Holocaust death toll (percentage-wise) is extremely high for a Western European country.

[GregSingh]

One reason might be high ratio of number of Jewish population to the area they lived on. That might cause going into hiding difficult.

Another, possibly more important might be complying with authorities. They believed they will be resettled (as told), so they did not take any actions.
I remember reading a book written by an railroad official in GG, who mentioned Dutch Jews during a train stops in Warsaw were frequently warned about their imminent death. The response he or his trusted employees were getting (in German) was something like: we rather believe a German official than a Polish railroad worker.
There is a book written by a father of George Soros, a Hungarian Jew, who said that when authorities requested all Hungarian Jews to report at gathering points, they mostly complied. And it was late 1944. Only a handful decided not to. Not everyone had guts and resources to go into hiding.

[Ypenburg]

The main reasons would be:
1) The Dutch officials made the population registers available to the occupying forces, while only sporadic resisting. Prior to the analysis of the population registers by the Nazis the Dutch Ministry of the Interior did an extensive research on the historical origin of Dutch surnames. Family names of Dutch Jews were in included it in a separate section and explained. Of this research, still during the occupation, a summary of the basis of the investigating was officially published in book form. The book itself does not give a clear answer on the occasion of the research. Around 75% of Dutch Jews did not survive the war, partly due to the transfer of population registers. The precise officials of the civil registry even recorded them as "emigrated". An important factor that played a part in this context, is that the Netherlands during the war years had a Zivilverwaltung (a civil administration) and no Militärverwaltung (military administration), as opposed to other countries like f.e. Belgium during most of the occupation. This resulted from the power vacuum caused by the flight of the Royal family. (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust)

2) The dense buildings in the cities, but also the open flat countryside and small forests, made it almost impossible to create good hiding places where one could go into hiding. Combine this with local traitors.....

3) The collaboration of the Jewish Council for Amsterdam (Joodsche Raad voor Amsterdam) that was established by the Nazi’s and performed by the commands of the Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung. (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joodse_Ra ... _Amsterdam)

[Knouterer]

I don't think the high percentage is indicative of a higher degree of antisemitism among the Dutch population or officials, but rather of better organization, as Ypenburg says. Some (naive or stupid) Dutch officials were proud to show the German occupation authorities how complete, detailed, cross-referenced and generally well-organized their population records were, and how easy it was to extract complete lists of - for example - Jewish citizens, with up-to-date addresses and everything.

The fact that the Jewish population was heavily concentrated in just one city, Amsterdam, also made it easier to round them up.

Percentages such as given in that Wikipedia article can never be more than rough approximations, IMHO. Firstly, it is hard to define the "Jewish" population of a given country. Some people who would have qualified under Nazi law escaped because the fact that they had a Jewish grandparent was not known to officialdom. Others who were not Jewish by any criterion were sent to the gas chambers because they had a Jewish-sounding name. And so on.

Then there's the point that in 1940 there were large numbers of Jews who had fled from Austria and Germany living in the Netherlands, Belgium and France, and it is not clear in how far they are counted as part of the "original" Jewish populations that those percentages are based on.

For Luxembourg - where an exact count should in principle be easier because of the limited numbers involved - that Wikipedia article gives 1,000 killed out of a Jewish population of 5,000, makes 20%.

However, an official government website gives the numbers as 1,200 out of 3,700, makes 32%: http://www.luxembourg.public.lu/de/le-g ... index.html

And that WWII National Museum website referred to above gives the number of victims as 1,950, or 56% of the 1933 population.

All of which goes to show that such numbers should be treated with considerable caution.

[BDV]

A contributing factor was the lack of German occupation in WWI. Thus the locals - patriots, regular people, and people in positions of power (I'm talking low ranking bureaucrats, police, etc.)- had no concept on how to effectively resist German commands/demands (contrast with Belgium and North, East of France). The strikes of 1943 were, for example, an astonishing tactical mistake...

Another contributing factor was German success in destroying Dutch resistance. And another was the delay in removing German occupation (~8-9 months compared to Belgium).

And a last one was the man in charge, a military man, without great regard for the Nazis in Belgium, NE France (von Falkenhausen); for Netherlands, an staunch Nazi, Seyss-Inquart.

[Knouterer]

For Luxembourg - where an exact count should in principle be easier because of the limited numbers involved - that Wikipedia article gives 1,000 killed out of a Jewish population of 5,000, makes 20%.

However, an official government website gives the numbers as 1,200 out of 3,700, makes 32%: http://www.luxembourg.public.lu/de/le-g ... index.html

And that WWII National Museum website referred to above gives the number of victims as 1,950, or 56% of the 1933 population.

All of which goes to show that such numbers should be treated with considerable caution.

News item in the Luxembourg press yesterday:

On the occasion of the Holocaust Memorial Day 2016, Prime Minister Xavier Bettel joined the Director of the Centre de Documentation et de la Recherche sur la Résistance (CDRR), Paul Dostert, in unveiling a new plaque to remind the Luxembourg public of the tragedies that the Grand Duchy underwent and overcame. The Prime Minister spoke of the importance in remaining conscious of these atrocities and of the individuals upon whom they befell.

"Even if they are no longer here, or fewer in numbers, it is up to us to preserve their presence in daily life," Xavier Bettel stated, before quoting Elie Wiesel: "To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time."

The new plaque reads (translated from French):

'In passing, remind yourself
that it was on these premises (Villa Pauly, SD headquarters - K) that was organised,
from 1941, the deportation
of Jews from Luxembourg.
1300 children, women, men perished
in the torment of the Shoah'.

[Knouterer]

One minor point considering the Netherlands: apart from state-run public schools, there were very large numbers of Catholic and Protestant schools (primary and secundary), which however were 100% funded by the state (from 1917).

In order to determine the exact amounts of subsidies due, everybody's religious affiliation was carefully registered, in contrast to for example France where the education system was (and is) purely neutral/non-confessional (laïque) and people are not asked any questions about their religion on census forms, as a matter of Republican principle.

That also made it a bit easier to identify and round up Jews in the Netherlands, I imagine.

[htk]

Hi All

- Everybody was registered at city hall level who lived where and what his religion was. Easy & handy for an dictarorial administration.

- Also the Joodse Raad helped enormously. The registered locally registered jews were directed by them and they were the ones who created the
transport lists (ofcourse they and their friends ... were the last to go)

So basically what happended was that a german said.. we need so and so much in the trains and we dutch took care of it.

Jews for the lists, police for security, Dutch railways for transport (they made about 2m in those year in transports), dutch moving companies for clearing out the houses, dutch bankers for handling the money stream, dutch Solicitors for making the deeds transfering jewish houses to ... the "government" (and made of course money .. nobody works for free).

Ofcourse being transported to the east, did not mean you were exempt of taxes. The brave civil cervants of the tax office of Amsterdam.. taxed the jews with owned houses .. and ofcourse being gone through the chimney the were late in paying.. Therefore they were fined. Only this year they were officially exempt and the fines were cancelled.

[Knouterer]

I certainly agree that overall we Dutch have no reason to feel proud about what happened. Many people made money, some stole Jewish possessions outright. There were cases where Jews gave valuables to their Aryan neighbours for safekeeping before they were deported, and those neighbours refused to give those valuables back to surviving relatives, pretending they never had them or that they had been gifts. Depressing.

The "Righteous among the Nations" were very few, as in other countries.

Excessive respect for authority also played a role, IMHO. Many devout Protestants genuinely believed that God wanted them to obey those in authority, no matter who they were.

On the other hand, to be fair, there was the "February Strike" in 1941, the first and it seems the only public manifestation in protest against the persecution of the Jews anywhere in occupied Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_strike .

[htk]

reaction to

A) Excessive respect for authority also played a role, IMHO. Many devout Protestants genuinely believed that God wanted them to obey those in authority, no matter who they were.

B) On the other hand, to be fair, there was the "February Strike" in 1941, the first and it seems the only public manifestation in protest against the persecution of the Jews anywhere in occupied Europe

A) Religous motives aside (because there is no difference in kathlic Souther Holland and Protestant Northern Holland in treatment of jews etc), when the dutch queen fled to England she (and her government) left a clear instruction behind for the civil servants to work with the occupying authorities
As we (still) are quite obedient, then most pro germany, 80% has a dont care attitude.... were the base ingredient for what happened

B) The strike in amsterdam was purely organized by the communist party and most of the people were communist. After the war this fact was covered up as we would like to think ourselves as good and giving all the blame to the germans (and ofcourse coldwar time( so the strike was "changed"in to a general thing.

[Knouterer]

B) The strike in amsterdam was purely organized by the communist party and most of the people were communist. After the war this fact was covered up as we would like to think ourselves as good and giving all the blame to the germans (and ofcourse coldwar time( so the strike was "changed"in to a general thing.

Could we have some evidence for that please? Keeping in mind that at that time, before the attack on the Soviet Union, the communist parties of the world were still officially neutral in this "war between capitalist states" and that Stalin tried to avoid provoking Hitler in any way?

There are other data which suggest the Dutch didn't do so badly under the circumstances.
From Wikipedia:

"Righteous Among the Nations (Hebrew: חסידי אומות העולם‎, khassidey umot ha-olam "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis.

As of February 2016, the award has been made to 25,685 people.[4]
1.Poland: 6,620
2.Netherlands: 5,516
3.France: 3,925
4.Ukraine: 2,544
5.Belgium: 1,707
6.Lithuania: 889
7.Hungary: 837
8.Italy: 671
9.Belarus: 618
10.Germany: 587
11.Slovakia: 558
12.Greece: 328
13.Russia: 197
14.Serbia: 135
15.Latvia: 135
16.Czech Republic: 115
17.Croatia: 115
18.Austria: 106
19.Moldova: 79
20.Albania: 75
21.Norway: 62
22.Romania: 60
23.Switzerland: 47
24.Bosnia and Herzegovina: 42
25.Armenia: 24
26.Denmark: 22
27.United Kingdom: 21
28.Bulgaria: 20
29.Macedonia: 10
30.Sweden: 10
31.Slovenia: 7
32.Spain: 7
33.United States: 5
34.Estonia: 3
35.Portugal: 3
36.Brazil: 2
37.China: 2
38.Chile: 1
39.Montenegro: 1
40.Ecuador: 1
41.Egypt: 1
42.Georgia: 1
43.Japan: 1
44.Ireland: 1
45.Cuba: 1
46.Luxembourg: 1
47.El Salvador: 1
48.Turkey: 1
49.Vietnam: 1"

[Ivan Denisovich]

According to Timothy Snyder Black Earth reason for such high death toll among Jews in Netherlands was it's statelessness*. Queen and government left for London. SS achieved nearly total control of country internal policy; Netherlands police answered to occupying forces just like it was the case in Poland. Also thanks to pre-war regulations Jews (and other religious groups) were already registered which meant that Germans have list of victims.

Raul Hilberg in his book The Destruction of the European Jews** claims that reasons for Netherlands death toll were:
- efficiency of German administration and Reichkommissar having absolute power and will to use it
- location of country - borders with Reich and Belgium
- lack of places where Jews could have hide


*Timothy Snyder, Black Earth, s. 290, 291 of polish edition.
** Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, s. 702 of II volume of polish, expanded edition.

[htk]

regarding the february strike being organized by the CP:

https://www.verzetsmuseum.org/museum/en ... ary_strike

Also an other reason: the jews never really integrated in dutch sociaty. Especially in the big cities. Amsterdam the majority of the (poor) jews lived in the jooden buurt. See website from NIOD with a 1941 survey of where the jews lived in Amserdam and no they were NOT forced to live together (only when the official gettos were formed)

http://www.niod.nl/nl/stuk-van-het-jaar ... reeks-1941

[Sheldrake]

The Netherlands was also a ordered, homogeneous law abiding society. There was no tradition of heading to the hills or ignoring the law when it did not suit.