Reports in English about the Amsterdam mini-pogrom often contain disinformation

Trust me, trust no one

It will be impossible to expose all the nonsense that appeared in the past month in English about the situation of Jews in the Netherlands, also by ‘authorities.’ Let us stick to correcting the greatest nonsense.

‘The Dutch Have Become Hostile to the Jews.’

Hitler did not invent and did not import Jew-hatred into the Netherlands. The History of Jews in Low Countries has always been between terrible and bad. Nice propaganda that Holland always stood for tolerance. In the Middle Ages, the Dutch twice violently removed all Jews from their territories. (A lack of documentation leaves it unclear if this was done through mass murder or expulsion.) This is not taught in schools in the Netherlands. I learned it only when I came to Israel from the history writing of the legendary Prof. Jo Michman (Melkman) (1914 – 2009).

The Dutch were fighting an 80-year War of Independence against Spain and soldiers needed to be paid. That was partly paid for by exploiting colonies, slavery, and slave trade. (Taste the supremacy when you think you deserve freedom, and that is financed by oppressing others.) The British taught English to the conquered, and the Dutch did not, for the same racist reason. The British said: Let’s teach these primitives something worthy; the Dutch said: these primitives are too stupid for our lofty language. That’s why English is now a world language and Dutch is not.

The Dutch ‘Golden Age’ was not enough to keep fighting Spain. City by city agreed to admit Jews fleeing the Iberian Peninsula only for their money but under a system of Apartheid (avant la lettre). The Jews had to wait until the French occupation to get civil rights—which didn’t erase hostility against Jews. Growing up in the Netherlands, I learned very early to guard my words, not to upset anyone. Uncle M. was a much-respected Member of Parliament, hard-working, iron integrity. But he was not a member of any Supervisory Board, the regular side jobs of the legislators, while some had dozens of them. How come? His wife explained it to me. ‘You don’t think they want a Jew among them, do you?’ The working class was more vocal about dislikes but pre-War Jewish and non-Jewish workers worked side-by-side, so they knew each other and there was no hatred. The rich are too educated to say anti-Jewish things in public. I know because I grew up in one of the richest villages in the country. My mother had a friend with a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father and husband and no one knew she was Jewish. The Jew-hatred she heard at parties was incredible. The Dutch King recent speaking out for Jews is amazingly refreshing.

WW II

The WW II Dutch record is checkered. If you report one side only, you definitely falsify history. Sorry, but I’m just reporting what was.

The Nazis in Germany reasoned that the fellow-Arian Dutch would no doubt be happy to get rid of their foreign, despicable Jews. They were mistaken. First of all, the Dutch hate violence and noise. An extermination camp would have been unthinkable on Dutch soil. Someone put this graffiti on a Rotterdam wall: “Keep your Nazi claws from our dirty Jews.”

Secondly, in public sentiment, the Dutch Jews were as foreign to the Dutch Gentiles as the Catholic Dutch to the Dutch Reformed. This segregation didn’t mean you should oppress the others. The Nazis never saw that coming. When the first Nazi razzia violently rounded up countless guiltless Jews, the Dutch went on strike! This was the world’s first instance of a general population protesting a persecution of Jews! On the other hand, Dutch civil servants were eager to please their (new, wicked) bosses, and organized the removal of Jews quicker than the Nazis had ordered or expected. Befehl ist Befehl was not yet infamous. ‘I just did my job, and I didn’t know of extermination.’ As if that makes it OK to chase, imprison, and transport in cattle cars a hundred thousand innocent people based on ethnicity.

In the Run-Up to WW II

In the 1930s, the Dutch government saw Jews fleeing Hitler Germany (with which it has its longest border) as a threat to the job safety of the Dutch—certainly not as humans fleeing genocide that had to be helped. Dutch society, only since the French occupation (Napoleon), on paper, had equal rights for everyone but was segregated along the lines of religion. Every denomination had its own institutions and political party, and one didn’t care much about the others, let alone foreigners. It closed its border to the fleeing Jews. But simple citizens smuggled Jews across the Stateline. On their free Saturday, a bus full of Dutch ‘shoppers’ would cross into Germany. They happily waved with their Dutch passports. The bus on its way back would only have Jewish passengers, happily waving ‘their’ Dutch passports. The ‘shoppers’ would return on foot without papers but since they clearly were Dutch, they had no trouble getting through, going home.

Separating the Jews

When ‘too many’ Jews started arriving ‘from the East,’ the Dutch authorities wanted to ‘accommodate’ them in a camp in a quiet area like National Park De Veluwe. However, that was in earshot of the vacation home of the Dutch Queen who vetoed that location. In the end, Camp Westerbork was built in a quiet corner of the Province of Drenthe, on order of the authorities, paid for by the Jewish community. Later, the Nazi occupier enlarged the camp and used it to collect the rounded-up Jews to transport them orderly to their destruction. A rotating group of Dutch civilian and military police ‘guarded’ against escapes, and Dutch rail and the Amsterdam tram transported the Jews, courtesy of the Nazi occupier.

When the resistance asked the Dutch Government-in-exile in London permission to blow up the tracks, it answered that it was irresponsible to have the whole of the population suffer, possibly even a lack of food in the cities, just to save such a small minority. And it was informed about the extermination camps! In its popular broadcasts to the occupied lands across the North Sea, it never spoke of saving the Jews. Most Jews lived in the larger cities where they hardly found people willing to hide them. The Resistance smuggled out Jewish kids and with great trouble helped Jewish families relocate to farms where they were hidden. ‘Overrepresented’ in the resistance were Protestants, Communists, homosexuals, and Jews. These rare heroes, with danger to life, helped total strangers to escape genocide. With Poland, the Netherlands has a record number of Yad-Washem-recognized protectors of Jews. The Fate of the Jews often depended on brave individuals who professionally (ministers, physicians) knew enough people to network. Most people looked away—but can we blame them? Yet, Nazi sympathizers, in about equal numbers to the Resistance heroes, sold hidden Jews out for a couple of guilders or even signed up for the SS. These policemen, railroad and tram workers, and Nazis have succeeded in hiding their guilt from their children, also via the Dutch authorities blocking access to and publication from the archives of the post-war trials. Convictions then were mostly for being a ‘traitor,’ sympathizing with the foreign occupiers—not for helping the Holocaust.

The Jewish-Dutch War Toll

A persistent myth has it that 75% of the Jews in the Netherlands were murdered in WW II and 25% saved, the worst score in occupied Western Europe. In truth, like in Nazi Germany itself until January 1945, many of the Dutch intermarried Jews were never persecuted. (secretly, their deportation was on the program; the Allies defeated the Nazis in time to save them.) Of the actually persecuted Jews, fewer than 10% survived.

After the War

After 1945, the Dutch started rebuilding their war-ravaged country and did not deal with emotions or guilt. Just after the War, a Socialist minister of finance said to Jews asking for their stolen money back: ‘You don’t think that I as a Socialist am going to help the Jews, do you?’ Israel became popular, a fellow, tiny country, surviving against all odds—a way to deal with their collective guilt. Until 1966, the yearly national commemoration of the War did not include the murdered and surviving Jews! But when Israel won the Six-Day War, it was no longer the underdog and became the bad guy. The news organizations NOS and ANP spread anti-Israel news almost daily and are still held as neutral. They are as Anti-Zionist as the BBC, CNN, and Al Jazeera. The most influential Jew-haters were seen as cute or curious. Most Antisemites stayed guarded about letting anything on, but are powerful behind the scenes. I still have my Dutch passport issued to me in 1997, © 1994, with on each page commemorations of a period in Dutch history. The Nazi bombardment on downtown Rotterdam, May 14, 1940 is acknowledged. It killed 771 people. The mass murder on 104,000 Jews is absent. 1997! Jew-hatred had never stopped. Today, violent anti-Jewish aggression is often done by working-class youths with Muslim roots, but the Antisemitic verbal abuse comes from Neo-Nazis and Marxist-Leninists brotherly marching ‘for Palestine.’ But the grownups demonstrating for Hamas was way too violent for the autochthone Dutch. Just before the last national election, this gave Wilders some extra seats.

Jews Now in the Netherlands

After WW II, many of the survivors left. It must have been a mixture of not wanting to be reminded in their face about what the Dutch had done to them or where it happened and fury about the Dutch complicity and the silence and lack of sympathy for the Jews that continued after the War.

Yet, others stayed. Often more Dutch than the Dutch, a sizable percentage was not religious and/or intermarried. The Netherlands was still all they knew. Some came out of hiding and hid for their children even that they were Jews. Most Jews were unaffiliated. You don’t build great communities with people still hiding, but we don’t blame the victim.

Meanwhile, thousands of Israeli men, sick of endless wars and religious demands, lured by the myths of Dutch tranquility and tolerance, moved to the Netherlands, and married ‘beautiful’ Dutch ladies to live calmly and richly. Possibly as many Dutch Jews left for Israel as Israeli Jews moved to the Netherlands. The number of Jews there seems consistently some 40,000—a far-away cry from pre-war 140,000, but still. Yet, especially the self-aware (religious) youths are leaving, the elderly are dying, and the unaffiliated are increasing, so, Dutch-Jewish organizations are dwindling.

Present Politics

The left can’t deal with anything but pity. Muslims and Jews are suffering. Here is a false equivalence set up forever. ‘Muslims are scared too’ is the new myth. They’re not leaving the Netherlands, but they are terrified? Pro-Jewish demonstrations are curtailed ‘for safety’ but ‘pro-Palestinian’ demonstrations are not. Understand that that is not from Jew-hatred. The Mayor of Amsterdam stands 100% with the Jews—because they suffer. But—always a but—Muslims suffer too. Total fundamentalist blindness.

At the time of the Amsterdam mini-pogrom, the Lower House of Parliament almost unanimously wanted Jews able to walk the streets safely. At least 40 years too late but better late than never. After the assault, the ‘pro-Palestinian’ lobby, with true Islamist chutzpa, claimed Islamophobia at least as large a problem, and the House fell for the big lie.

Confronted by the ‘hard’ language in the House, one Muslim deputy minister resigned and two MPs joined her in solidarity. What had been ‘hard’ was the truth. Unthinkable for the left, the mini-pogrom did not come from Muslim suffering. The mob was not enraged because of Tel Aviv soccer fans’ aggression but because they celebrated proudly and happily at Dam Square for hours. Nothing upsets Antisemites as seeing happy, proud Jews. After that, they marched brotherly with Amsterdam Ajax supporters proudly chanting Jooooden (Dutch for Je-e-e-ews). A clip ‘proving’ that Maccabi supporters first had attacked a Muslim Uber driver turned out doctored. A police complaint was never filed­­­ ‘despite’ the ‘proof.’ Whatever that case, no one dared to say that, even if one is ‘enraged,’ that’s no excuse to be violent. ‘I stole because I wanted more’ does not charm any judge. Also, two genocide-celebrating Hamas flags were destroyed by Maccabi supporters. As if violence against flags equals chasing Jews (or anyone). ‘Pro-Palestinian’ demonstrators destroy Israeli flags routinely. Have we seen Jews attack Muslims for that?

The Holocaust and Kristallnacht were not ‘provoked’ by Marinus van der Lubbe setting fire to the Reichstag. That only was an excuse to begin the genocide. On Amsterdam’s social media, the term Jews hunt was written before any Maccabi fan landed in Amsterdam. The leader of the national Muslim Party DENK, and the NOS reversed cause and effect for the mini-pogrom, as if Jews brought this aggression upon themselves (Matthew 27:25). NB: Antisemites hold all Jews accountable for actions of any Jew.

The Mayor of Amsterdam, broadly supported by the City Council, will stay part of the problem. They can’t see evil, only suffering. How much the Dutch Parliament will become part of the problem will have to be seen. The Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, same Party as the deputy minister and two MPs who resigned, had been ambassador to Israel. He’s terrible on Israel because he thinks he understands anything, and others believe him. He’s completely in the dark. He was one of the first willing to have Netanyahu arrested after an Antisemitic UN Court ordered so. Hungary, slowly followed by others, had to take the lead calling that nonsense, unjustified, and undesirable. A Dutch echo of civil servants during WW II, eager to please, Befehl ist Befehl, ignoring ethics, truth, and justice? NB: His political party was founded to improve the standard of governance!

Epilogue

Al over the world, the Dutch and Amsterdam are slandered for its Jew-hatred, but, no, the Dutch in general are not Antisemitic in the sense of anti-Jewish. They’re for equality and against violence; many Dutch Muslims are too. Yet, the mini-pogrom has emboldened the Dutch and global Jew-haters. The Dutch are gaining pride (for centuries a hidden commodity among them) to withstand intolerant Muslim expansionism in the country.

The Dutch completely believe the anti-Israel lies daily served to them via Hamas-TV, Al Jazeera, the BBC, and CNN. The national news carriers NOS and ANP (since I follow them, for over 30 years) have daily drenched the Dutch with total fabrications about the Israeli government and now the Gaza war. There was no famine, no genocide, and no sacrificing of Gazans by the IDF. The old story: Jews kill babies, children, murder, are malicious beyond comprehension, are Untermenschen. Who told us that before?

This is how a Jew writes who is Dutch honest and is no longer afraid. Dutch Jews still residing in the Netherlands will tell you that I’m ‘unnuanced.’