Return: Holocaust Survivors and Dutch Antisemitism (review)

Dienke Hondius's work on deported Jews' return to the Netherlands after the end of the Second World War and on Dutch reactions to these Jews was published in 1990 to overwhelmingly positive reviews. Her scholarship and attention to detail were exemplary, and a reprint, followed by a summary paper in Patterns of Prejudice, brought her work to a wider audience.¹ At that time, the academic study of the immediate postwar years was still in its infancy. Many authors would have been content to rest on their laurels as pioneers in a new field of enquiry. From the mid-1990s onwards, however, legal, economic and social questions surrounding "the return" of displaced persons to Western Europe from other parts of German-occupied Europe became highly politicized in the Netherlands. As a result of this public discourse, Hondius became involved in a government-sponsored inquiry into all aspects of the treatment of returnees to the Netherlands; this was part of a wider study under the aegis of the SOTO (Stichting Onderzoek Terugkeer en Opvang—Institute for Research into Return and Reception).²

An English-language edition of the original Dutch work would have been a welcome addition to the canon on the Holocaust and its aftermath in the Netherlands, but the additional research carried out as part of the SOTO project has provided even more evidence to support Hondius's initial conclusions and has provided some answers to questions that could not be properly addressed before. Thus, Return is not simply a translation of the older publication, but is rather an updated and enormously enhanced version that has benefited from consideration of new historiography and from the author's efforts to nuance the conclusions on this emotionally laden subject.

Although the book focuses on the return of Jewish camp survivors, its opening chapters paint a very clear picture of the situation of the Jews in the prewar and wartime Netherlands. The author highlights these individuals' marginalized position within a "pillarized" society and describes the negative public reactions to the arrival of Jewish and political refugees from Germany in the 1930s. Although this background is essential for an understanding of the postwar era, Hondius measures her conclusions carefully, implying that most of the prejudice was cultural; she does not overstate, as other authors have, the level of antisemitism that existed in that country during this period. Her treatment of the war period is equally careful: she notes that while the February 1941 strike was in direct response to German attacks on the "Jewish quarter" of Amsterdam, it was the last protest of that nature. However, she also points out that the Germans changed the way they dealt with the "Jewish question" as a result of this experience. In keeping with general conclusions on public opinion in Germany, Hondius characterizes Dutch opinion towards the Jews as indifference—a sentiment enabled by deliberate German attempts, beginning in late 1940, to isolate the Jews.

The central question of the book concerns the treatment of the Jews who returned to the Netherlands after the war was over. Hondius's detailed study of the Dutch government-in-exile's planning for the return of its citizens, both Jewish and non-Jewish, shows that these officials had little detailed knowledge of objective circumstances inside occupied Europe. Until mid-1944 it was still officially assumed that an estimated 60,000 Jews would be among the 300,000 Dutch nationals who would be returning to their country when the war ended. This figure was maintained even though the government was aware of the killings taking place in Poland and had received evidence from its own nationals that the number of surviving Jews was a mere fraction of the official estimate. In addition, the leadership feared that huge numbers of DPs were likely to flee the poor conditions that existed in Germany, and was concerned about the political and public hygiene problems that such an influx might create. The politicians' lack of information was to affect their decisions regarding the...