Abstract
This study determined the victimisation rate among Amsterdam Jews and socio-demographic differences in surviving the Holocaust. After linking a registration list of over 77,000 Jewish inhabitants in 1941 to post-war lists of Jewish victims and survivors, the victimisation rate lies between 74.3 and 75.3 %. Differences in survival chances and risk of being killed are examined by using multivariable logistic and Cox regression analyses. While male Jews had a reduced risk of death, in the end their survival chances hardly differed from females. Though Jews aged 6–14 and 31–50 initially had a lower risk of death, in the end compared with Jews aged 15–30 they had lower survival chances, just as Jews aged 50+. For Jews aged 0–5, it was the other way around. Immigrants showed better survival chances than native Jews. German Jews showed better survival chances than Dutch Jews, but Polish and other Jewish nationals showed highest survival chances. Jews who had abandoned Judaism had better survival chances than Jews belonging to an Israelite congregation. Divorced, widowed and unmarried adult Jews had better survival chances than married Jews and their children; Jews married to non-Jews, however, had one of the highest survival chances. Jews in the two highest social classes had better survival chances than jobless Jews. These findings indicate that survival was not random but related to socio-demographic characteristics. This sheds light on demographic consequences of conflict and violence: Nazi persecution reduced the Amsterdam Jewish community drastically, and socio-demographic differences in survival impacted the post-war Jewish population structure.
Highlights
Differences in Jewish victimisation rates, i.e. proportions of Jews being directly or indirectly killed by Nazi Germany, among occupied states and regions (e.g. Fein 1979; Benz 1991) and Dutch municipalities (Croes and Tammes 2006) are wellknown
This study uses an individual-level approach by investigating the individual fate of more than 77,000 Jews living in Amsterdam in 1941—that is more than half of all Jews in the Netherlands—using a retrieved German Nazi registration list of Jewish inhabitants and post-war lists of victims and survivors
The varying survival chances over time expressed in the survival function are due to several factors, including the variation in monthly transportation of Jews from Amsterdam to Westerbork (Meershoek 1999: 247, 288), weekly number of deportation trains and number of deportees, and destination of the trains
Summary
Differences in Jewish victimisation rates, i.e. proportions of Jews being directly or indirectly killed by Nazi Germany, among occupied states and regions (e.g. Fein 1979; Benz 1991) and Dutch municipalities (Croes and Tammes 2006) are wellknown. This study uses an individual-level approach by investigating the individual fate of more than 77,000 Jews living in Amsterdam in 1941—that is more than half of all Jews in the Netherlands—using a retrieved German Nazi registration list of Jewish inhabitants and post-war lists of victims and survivors. This approach results in a more accurate demographic story of the destruction of Dutch Jewry during the Nazi period. Differences in survival are examined by using multivariable logistic and Cox regression models
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