The Netherlands and the Nazi Genocide (review)

Abstract

Book Reviews 103 supported Israel, though without trying to practice American-style ethnic politics in an environment that remains resistant to such ideas. Kaspi's survey is broader in scope than any of the literature in English on Jews in wartime France, and an English version would be welcome for undergraduate courses on the Holocaust. The bibliography is thorough, although-understandably, in view ofthe book's intended audience-it fails to indicate which titles are available in English. Specialists in the field will find little that is new here, but Kaspi's book constitutes the best synthesis of the subject to date and makes it possible to understand some of the ways in which the experience of the Jews in France differed from that of their fellows in other European countries. Jeremy D. Popkin Department of History University of Kentucky The Netherlands and the Nazi Genocide, edited by G. Jan Colijn and Franklin Littell. Lampeter, Dyfed, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992. 544 pp. $95.00. This volume is an amalgam of the papers presented at the 21st Annual Scholar's Conference on the Holocaust held in Pomona, NewJersey during March 1991. As is often the case, the title of the work is at once focused and misleading. Only nine of the articles are related to the Nazi genocide in the Netherlands, while twenty-four deal with other subjects. Nevertheless , it provides significant information about the Dutch experience and related issues about the Holocaust. It is unfortunate that the book is so expensive, as cost may militate against greater library circulation. The Netherlands represents a country during the Nazi era where many misconceptions exist. Many people believe there was strong support of the Jewish population by the Dutch, linked to the longer history of welcome given in Amsterdam to those of Spanish descent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The reality, however, offers a somewhat different picture. Only 40,000 of the 140,000 Dutch Jews survived the Holocaust. Anne Frank's story, which has become an icon of modern culture and the story 'of the Holocaust, represents the essence of the question-Anne did not survive. Furthermore, the Netherlands had. the largest Nazi party outside ofGermany and Austria, something not found in France or Poland. 104 SHOFAR Spring 1993 Vol. 11, No.3 Nanda van der Zee's article on the theme of "Dutch Heroism" is useful in that it reiterates many of Presser's themes about Dutch complicity: the bureaucratic zeal ofthe Dutch Union, complicity ofPopulation Registry Offices and the police in identitying Jews, and the failure of both government in exile and the Red Cross to speak out about the specificity of Nazi persecution of Dutch and other Jews. Ger van Roon's article on the Protestant Churches echoes this theme indicating the insufficiency of Church responses, except for a protest against the policy of Dutch neutralism by followers ofKarl Barth and the "Barmen Theses" in 1939 and 1940" and the altruistic responses by individual Dutchmen in hiding Jews. Jack Polak, writing as a survivor and historian, takes a different position. He underscores the "unbelievable might of the Germans," the difficulty in getting out of the country, the absence of knowledge by Jews themselves about gas chambers, and the failures of the Dutch government to provide any spokesmen for the Jewish cause. Polak enumerates the varying levels of Dutch resistance, and contrasts them with Jewish persecution and resistance, the co-option of Jewish institutions, such as the Jewish newspaper, by the Nazis, and lack of knowledge of the ultimate solution. In responding to Judith Miller's recent work on the Dutch Jews, Polak's conclusion is that the Dutch took exceptional casualties and there was no alternative for the Jews' fate. Henry Huttenbach affirms many of Polak's points, concluding that "the Holocaust in the Netherlands reveals nothing outstanding or unusual on all three sides-the German, the Dutch and the Jewish ... The coming of the Nazis removed the protective cover of the law, making the forbidden permissible." The second section of this book will provide perhaps some of the most interesting articles, as they go beyond the focus of the Netherlands. Herbert Hirsh's article focuses on...