Return Holocaust Survivors and Dutch Anti-Semitism

Subjects:

• Religious Studies » Religious Studies (General)
• History » Holocaust Studies
• History » European History -- Modern/20th Century

Reviews:

• In this interesting book, Hondius seeks to explain an apparent paradox: the people of the Netherlands have long had the reputation of being among the most tolerant of Europeans, yet there was almost no resistance to persecution of Holland's Jews during the Nazi occupation (1940-45). Ultimately, three quarters of the Dutch Jews died during the Holocaust, the highest proportion in Western Europe....As Hondius correctly points out, much more research needs to be carried out concerning the experiences of displaced Jews returning to the Netherlands and other European countries. Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.
  —Choice June 2004
• Return is a nuanced contribution to our understanding of the disproportionate destruction of Dutch Jewry, because it extends the tableau beyond structural failings to the political culture....[f]rank and useful book.
  —Journal of Genocide Research 2006
• [R]eturn is not simply a translation of the older publication, but is rather an updated and enormously enhanced version that has benefited from consideration of new historiography and from the author's efforts to nuance the conclusions on this emotionally laden subject....This is an important and sobering story, and the author has told it carefully here. The appearance of this work in English is enormously beneficial for students and scholars alike.
  —Holocaust and Genocide Studies .
• This book, based on research in archives, survivors' memoirs, and interviews with survivors, chronicles the experience of repatriated Jews in the Netherlands light on the continuing uneasiness and sensitivities between Jews and non-Jews today.
  —SHOFAR Summer 2004
• [w]ell written monograph...[t]his book is highly recommended for all readers.
  —Jewish Book World Spring 2004

• Endorsement From Michael Berenbaum
  Sigi Ziering Institute, The University of Judaism, Author of The World Must Know: This is a much-needed study of the return of Jews to the Netherlands after the Holocaust. It presents significant insights into Dutch society before, during, and especially after the Holocaust and to the issues that were provoked when survivors surprisingly emerged alive. She raises all the troubling questions; her answers are quite disturbing, which is the great virtue of this work.
• Endorsement From Deborah Dwork
  Rose Professor of Holocaust History,
  Director, Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Clark University: Breaking loose of the myth of the heroic Netherlands, Hondius questions what the Dutch actually did during the war and how they dealt with their all-too-few returning Jewish neighbors afterwards. Her pathbreaking portrait of the effect of the German occupation on a population free of endemic antisemitism shows how five years of warping propaganda and punishing living conditions changed Dutch attitudes towards the Jews.

Table of Contents:

• Acknowledgments
• Return from Hell: The Story behind a Photograph.
• Introduction
• Echoes of Nazi Germany, 1933-1940
• Registration, Isolation, Deportation, 1940-1945
• No Distinction: Planning the Repatriation in London
• The Journey Back
• Arrival in Amsterdam Central Station, June 1945: An Orderly Reception Center
• Mistreatment of Stateless Repatriates
• Reactions of Non-Jews to Jewish Survivors: From Incomprehension to Overt Anti-Semitism
• Jews on the Limits of Liberation
• Concern about Anti-Semitism
• Foreign Observers' Impressions of the Netherlands, 1945-1946
• Conclusions
• Notes
• Sources
• Glossary
• Index