Silence and Small Gestures: Jews and non-Jews in the Netherlands (1940–1945)

Abstract

Through a systematic analysis of 500 Jewish testimonies, this article seeks to expand the social and cultural history of the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. Shifting the focus away from heated debates about ‘knowledge’ of the Holocaust towards wartime social interactions, it argues that prevailing notions of ‘resistance/collaboration’ and ‘rescue/betrayal’ do not fully account for the civilian obstruction of Nazi policies and many small gestures of support towards Jews. Ultimately, as a crucial addition to German and non-Jewish Dutch sources, Jewish accounts invite further perspectives on the broader landscape of Jews’ perceptions and memories of non-Jews, acts of disobedience and the effects of polarisation across Nazi-occupied Western Europe.