The Role of the Jewish Council During the Occupation of the Netherlands

Abstract

In one of his articles, Dan Michman discusses the definition of the term ‘Jewish Council’ and reflects on the problems of using it as a general description of the Jewish bodies established by the German authorities in occupied territories. Instead, he suggests the term ‘headship’. Regarding the establishment of Jewish Councils and the intentions of the German occupiers, Michman certainly has a point. But a look, for example, at the social processes within the Jewish Council in the Netherlands and a survey of its communications with its surroundings reveals that (at least here) the term ‘headship’ is too one-dimensional. The present article focuses on a complex network of interactions, and analyses the different, shifting positions the Jewish Council in the Netherlands took up, as well as its connections with both the non-Jewish and Jewish environment and, of course, the occupying authorities. In addition, I shed some light on the role the Council had in various social processes during the occupation and in the deportation of 75 per cent of Dutch Jews. Putting the Jewish Council and its actors at centre stage is still not a very easy task and this chapter cannot provide simple, clear explanations or solutions, but I hope it will throw some light on the problems of categorizing actors in social processes in a too one-dimensional way.