18
PARTISAN REVIEW
fidently regarded itself as part of the Dutch nation. ]n Rembrandt's time,
the Jewish population was
10,000.
Two centuries later, it was
140,000.
By
1940,
many Jews had attained high levels of prosperity, recognition,
and acceptance in Dutch life, although not
to
the degree characteristic
of German Jews before the rise of Hitler. Forty percent of the Jewish
population lived in small villages, towns, or cities such as the Hague.
The other
60
percent lived in Amsterdam. A large number of them were
poor. Through the
1930S,
Dutch Jews focused on internal issues of
assim il ation, integration, and the well-being of the Jewish community
despite the fact that Nazi rule in Germany compelled thousands of Jews,
such as Otto Frank,
to
seek refuge in the Netherlands.
The Dutch haven appeared secure until the spring of
1940,
when
Germany conquered the Netherlands. The Dutch fought for five days
and then capitulated. The Queen and government fled
to
London, estab–
lished a resistance government in exile, and urged the Dutch at home
to
oppose the Germans. The presence of thousands of Germans-as
administrators, police, and soldiers-the acquiescent Dutch civil service,
and the active support of Dutch Nazis quickly turned the Netherlands
into a subject state. The government in Berlin put the Dutch under the
control of Seyss-Inquart, an accomplished Nazi fresh from anti-Semitic
conquests in Austria. From that point on, Amsterdam was neither
Jerusalem nor Babylon. It was hell.
It
didn't take long for the Germans
to
differentiate Jews from other
Dutch citizens through anti-Jewish decrees and administrative acts: first,
prohibition against Jewish civil servants and teachers; then, in
[941,
violent assaults against Jews in the Jewish Quarter in Amsterdam. The
Germans insisted that the Jews form a Jewish Council
to
make their
community respond
to
increasingly punitive German demands. Jews
were separated from the rest of Dutch society when their rights
to
prop–
erty, education, work, and mobility were taken away. Jews were not
allowed
to
use trams or bicycles, enter parks or swimming pools, go
to
movie houses, or use beaches. Children's schools were segregated, uni–
versities were closed to Jewish professors and students, and Jewish
musicians and actors were no longer allowed
to
perform. Shopping was
only allowed in narrow time slots. These were the same kinds of restric–
tions that the Germans imposed upon their own Jews in the
1930S.
Initially, German policies of disenfranchisement and persecution infu–
riated the Dutch. In February
1941,
they launched a general strike,
which closed down the docks, the transportation system, and industry.
This great spasm of opposition
to
the Germans-and outrage against
the treatment of the Jews-lasted three days. The punitive German
