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Victims and Survivors: The Nazi Persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands, 1940-1945 (review)
- Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies
- Purdue University Press
- Volume 17, Number 4, Summer 1999
- pp. 129-132
- 10.1353/sho.1999.0048
- Review
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
Book Reviews 129 Bonnann, then RudolfHess's chiefof staff, asked whether Hitler wished to remove the anti-Jewish placards that were appearing all over the Reich. For much ofthe period under examination, the impetus toward "purification" seems to have been local. In 1936, Friedlander describes an initiative sponsored by Munich's city fathers to forbid Jews access to municipal baths and showers, whereas in Frankfurt a woman party member demanded the removal of Jewish names from street signs. Even the infamous pogrom of November 9 and 10, 1938, the so-called Kristallnacht, was much less coordinated than many historians have claimed. Friedlander describes the pogrom as "an explosion of sadism," bursting forth "at all levels, that of the highest leadership and that of the lowliest party members" (p. 277). Local, virulent, and popular, antisemitism in Gennany at the base of society frequently resembled the "redemptive" variety Friedlander attributes primarily to Nazi party leaders. Particularly for those interested in the depth and nature of antisemitic sentiment in prewar Nazi Gennany, Friedlander's book offers many thoughtful insights. Both students and specialists will profit from a careful reading of this work. Friedlander's juxtaposition of anti-Jewish policy debates with routine scenes of persecution is chilling. By uniting the stories of victims, perpetrators, bystanders, and "ordinary" citizens, Friedlander has demonstrated why the most tragic chapter in Europe's history continues to exert powerful influence on the modern historical imagination. Keith Allen Department of History American University Victims and Survivors: The Nazi Persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands, 1940-1945, by Bob Moore. New York: Arnold, 1997. 340 pp. $65.00. Discussions about the Holocaust in Holland generally focus on two compelling issues: why was the death rate among Dutch Jews higher than that for any other occupied Western European country, and what do the memoirs and legend of Anne Frank tell us about those victims? Bob Moore's well researched and clearly written volume provides sensible answers to both queries, suggesting new and important ways for specialists and the general public to think about this little-understood but, at the same time, famous story within the story ofthe Shoah. His contribution is particularly important since most of the other studies of this topic have yet to be translated into English. Seventy-five percent of Holland's pre-war Jews and Jewish refugees perished during the Shoah. Only Poland and the Baltic States experienced higher rates ofmurder; Holland's surpassed those of its neighbors, Belgium and France. Deported Jews accounted for 40 percent of the total civilian casualties, a shocking number when one 130 SHOFAR Summer 1999 Vol. 17, No.4 considers that Jews accounted for, perhaps, 2 percent ofthe Dutch population. Over the years, scholars have proposed an array of explanations for this annihilation, including Jewish demographic concentration in Amsterdam, the almost perfect Dutch registration records, and the complementary tradition of Dutch obedience, a landscape and geographical position which provided few if any avenues of escape, the willingness of Jews themselves to be organized and directed, inaction on the part of Holland's elite, including Queen Wilhelmina, and Dutch military collaboration with the occupying forces. Not surprisingly, Jewish leadership has also come under intense scrutiny. Perhaps, more fundamentally, scholars have recently questioned the truism of Dutch liberalism and tolerance, asking whether there is more myth here than reality, and, even if the latter, what limits those traditions contained. Did the famous Dutch hospitality extend to all, or were asylum and assimilation restricted to some, unavailable to others? Studies suggest that wealthy, Protestant, and intellectual refugees were greeted with open arms; others were not. Perhaps the paradox of tolerance and destruction is a false one which requires no resolution. Tolerance seemed to be lacking not only for wartime Jews, most particularly refugees from other European countries, who were treated as aliens, but also towards the few surviving Jews who returned after the war. They faced hostility, rather than the indifference shaping common views towards Jewish neighbors before the war. Recently a connection has been drawn, as in the case of France, between intolerance and violence within Europe and colonial violence overseas. Might there be parallels between Occupied Holland and the Dutch East...