Jews of the Netherlands: From Golden Age to Destruction and Renewal

The Jerusalem of the West

For centuries, Amsterdam was known as the “Jerusalem of the West” — a city where Jews found a degree of freedom, prosperity, and cultural achievement unmatched elsewhere in Europe. From the arrival of the first Sephardic refugees in the late sixteenth century to the devastation of the Holocaust, the story of Dutch Jewry is one of remarkable highs and shattering lows, of tolerance tested and ultimately betrayed.

The Netherlands occupies a unique and painful place in Jewish history: a country that welcomed Jews when most of Europe expelled them, that nurtured one of the continent’s most vibrant Jewish cultures, and that then saw 75% of its Jewish population murdered during the Holocaust — the highest proportion of any Western European country.

The Sephardic Pioneers

Refugees from the Inquisition

The Jewish presence in the Netherlands began in earnest in the late 1500s, when Sephardic Jews fleeing the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions found refuge in the newly independent Dutch Republic. Many of these refugees were conversos — Jews who had been forcibly converted to Christianity but had secretly maintained Jewish practices. In the tolerant atmosphere of the Netherlands, they were able to return openly to Judaism.

The Dutch Republic, engaged in its own revolt against Catholic Spain, was relatively welcoming to religious minorities. While Jews did not receive full citizenship rights (these came gradually over the following centuries), they were permitted to practice their religion, establish businesses, and build communal institutions.

By the early seventeenth century, Amsterdam’s Sephardic community was thriving. Its members were prominent in international trade — particularly in diamonds, sugar, tobacco, and colonial commerce — and in banking, printing, and the professions.

The Portuguese Synagogue

The crown jewel of Dutch Sephardic life was the Esnoga — the Portuguese Synagogue of Amsterdam, completed in 1675. Designed by the architect Elias Bouman, the synagogue was one of the largest in the world at the time of its construction. Its magnificent interior — lit by hundreds of candles (still used today, as the building has never been electrified) — made it a landmark of Amsterdam and a symbol of Jewish freedom in Europe.

The synagogue has survived wars, occupations, and the Holocaust. It remains in use today, a living monument to the golden age of Dutch Sephardic Jewry.

Spinoza

The most famous — and most controversial — figure to emerge from Amsterdam’s Sephardic community was Baruch (Benedict) de Spinoza (1632–1677), the philosopher whose radical ideas about God, nature, and religion challenged both Jewish and Christian orthodoxies. In 1656, the young Spinoza was excommunicated (cherem) by the Sephardic community for his heterodox views — one of the most famous excommunications in Jewish history.

Spinoza went on to become one of the founders of modern philosophy, but his relationship with the Jewish community remained fraught. His story illustrates both the intellectual vitality of Amsterdam’s Jewish life and the tensions that freedom of thought could create within traditional communities.

The Ashkenazi Majority

Immigration from the East

Beginning in the mid-seventeenth century, Ashkenazi Jews from Germany, Poland, and Lithuania began arriving in the Netherlands in significant numbers, fleeing pogroms, wars, and economic hardship. By the eighteenth century, Ashkenazi Jews far outnumbered their Sephardic counterparts.

Unlike the generally prosperous Sephardim, many Ashkenazi immigrants were poor. They settled in Amsterdam’s Jewish quarter — the Jodenbuurt (Jewish neighborhood) — and worked as peddlers, craftsmen, and laborers. The economic and social gap between the Sephardic and Ashkenazi communities was significant, and the two groups maintained largely separate institutions, synagogues, and social networks well into the modern era.

Emancipation

The French Revolution and the subsequent French occupation of the Netherlands (1795–1813) brought full legal emancipation to Dutch Jews. For the first time, Jews were granted equal citizenship rights. This process continued under the restored Dutch monarchy, and by the mid-nineteenth century, Dutch Jews were among the most integrated in Europe.

Jews entered Dutch public life at every level: as politicians, professors, journalists, artists, and civic leaders. The Jewish working class played a significant role in the Dutch labor movement, and the diamond industry — centered in Amsterdam — was largely a Jewish enterprise.

By 1940, approximately 140,000 Jews lived in the Netherlands, with about 80,000 concentrated in Amsterdam.

The Holocaust in the Netherlands

Occupation

On May 10, 1940, Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands. The country fell within five days. Queen Wilhelmina and the government fled to London, leaving the Dutch population — including its Jews — under German occupation.

The Nazi regime implemented its anti-Jewish measures in the Netherlands with methodical precision:

• 1940: Registration of all Jews; Jews dismissed from government positions
• 1941: Jews banned from public places, parks, and cinemas; the February Strike of 1941 — a general strike by Dutch workers protesting the deportation of Jews — was the only such mass protest against anti-Jewish measures in occupied Europe
• 1942: Jews forced to wear the yellow star; deportations to Westerbork transit camp began
• 1942–1944: From Westerbork, trains departed weekly to Auschwitz and Sobibor

The Devastation

Of approximately 140,000 Jews in the Netherlands at the start of the war, approximately 102,000 were murdered — a death rate of roughly 75%. This was the highest proportion of any Western European country (compared to approximately 25% in France and 40% in Belgium).

Several factors contributed to this catastrophic toll:

• Efficient Dutch civil administration: The Netherlands had an exceptionally thorough population registry, which the Germans exploited to identify and locate Jews with devastating accuracy
• Geography: The flat, densely populated Netherlands offered few hiding places compared to the forests and mountains of other countries
• Compliance of Dutch institutions: While individual Dutch citizens rescued thousands of Jews (most famously in the case of Anne Frank), the Dutch police, railways, and civil service generally cooperated with the German deportation machinery

Anne Frank

The most famous victim of the Holocaust in the Netherlands was Anne Frank (1929–1945), a German-Jewish girl whose family fled to Amsterdam in 1933. Anne, her family, and four others hid in a secret annex above her father’s office for more than two years (1942–1944) before being betrayed and deported. Anne died in Bergen-Belsen in February or March 1945, just weeks before the camp’s liberation.

Her diary, published posthumously as The Diary of a Young Girl (1947), became one of the most widely read books in the world and the single most recognizable personal account of the Holocaust. The Anne Frank House on the Prinsengracht canal in Amsterdam is today one of the most visited museums in Europe.

After the War

Return and Reckoning

The Jews who survived — approximately 35,000–38,000, including those who had hidden, fled, or survived the camps — returned to a devastated community. Homes had been looted, businesses confiscated, and entire neighborhoods emptied. The Jewish quarter of Amsterdam was largely destroyed (partly by the Germans, partly by postwar demolition).

The psychological toll was immense. Survivors found their world erased — families gone, communities vanished, possessions stolen. The Dutch government’s response was initially inadequate: restitution was slow, and many survivors felt that the Netherlands had not fully reckoned with the degree of collaboration that had made the deportations possible.

It took decades for a fuller reckoning to emerge. In the 1990s and 2000s, the Dutch government formally acknowledged the role of Dutch institutions in the Holocaust and established restitution programs for stolen property and assets.

Rebuilding

The Dutch Jewish community today numbers approximately 30,000–50,000 people (estimates vary depending on how Jewishness is defined). While a fraction of its prewar size, the community is active and diverse:

• Synagogues of all denominations operate in Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, and other cities
• The Jewish Historical Museum (Joods Historisch Museum) in Amsterdam, housed in a complex of former Ashkenazi synagogues, is one of Europe’s leading institutions of Jewish culture
• The Portuguese Synagogue continues to hold services
• Jewish schools, cultural organizations, and community centers serve a reviving community
• Annual events, including Holocaust commemoration on May 4 (Dodenherdenking) and Liberation Day on May 5, keep the memory of the war alive

Legacy

The history of Dutch Jewry carries a complex lesson. The Netherlands was, for centuries, one of the most tolerant places in Europe for Jews — a haven in a hostile continent. Yet that tolerance proved insufficient to protect the community when a genocidal regime came to power. The very efficiency and order of Dutch society — the population registries, the compliant bureaucracy, the well-organized police — became instruments of destruction.

The story of Dutch Jewry is thus both an inspiration and a warning: an inspiration in the centuries of coexistence, intellectual achievement, and cultural richness that Amsterdam’s Jewish community created; and a warning that tolerance, however genuine, is fragile, and that the institutions of civil society can be turned against the people they are meant to serve.

Today, the Portuguese Synagogue still stands on the Visserplein, its candles flickering in the same wooden chandeliers that lit the faces of worshippers three and a half centuries ago. It is a monument to what was built, what was lost, and what endures.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why was the Holocaust death rate so high in the Netherlands compared to other Western European countries? The combination of an efficient population registry (which made Jews easy to identify), flat geography (which made hiding difficult), and the cooperation of Dutch civil institutions (police, railways, municipal governments) with German deportation orders all contributed. The Netherlands had fewer resistance networks and geographic hiding places than France or Belgium.

Is the Anne Frank House still open to visitors? Yes. The Anne Frank House at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam is open to visitors year-round and receives more than one million visitors annually. The secret annex where the Frank family hid has been preserved, and the museum includes exhibits about Anne’s life, the Holocaust in the Netherlands, and themes of prejudice and discrimination.

What is the status of the Dutch Jewish community today? The community numbers approximately 30,000–50,000 people and is centered in Amsterdam, with smaller communities in other Dutch cities. It includes Orthodox, Liberal (Progressive), and secular Jews. The community supports synagogues, schools, cultural institutions, and active commemoration of the Holocaust.