Not that the Netherlands is completely at ease with its record under the Nazi occupation. Seven thousand Dutchmen volunteered for the SS, and a higher proportion of Dutch Jews died in the Holocaust — three-quarters of them, more than twice the proportion in Belgium, for example, and three times more than in France — than in any other occupied country of Western Europe. Whatever the reasons for this disproportion — the relatively unpropitious Dutch landscape for a life of clandestinity is surely one — unease about it is inevitable. According to one historian of the Holocaust in the Netherlands, Marnix Croes:
On the whole, the Dutch reacted to the German occupation, including the persecution of the Jews, with a high degree of cooperation, following their reputed tradition of deference to authority. This did not change when the deportations started, and it lasted until the beginning of 1943. … [T]here was for a long time little doubt that the bureaucracy would not sabotage German-imposed measures, and in fact these were thoroughly implemented.
As Croes observed, “the Dutch bureaucracy assisted the Germans, primarily through population registration; the Dutch police helped, and Dutch bounty hunters, lured by blood money, tracked down Jews in hiding”.
Theodore Dalrymple, “The Cheapest Insult: The reductio ad Hitlerum: a refuge of tired minds”, City Journal, 2017-06-19.
May 1, 2023
QotD: The Netherlands under Nazi occupation
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