This is how Heintje Davids, an immensely popular revue artiste from Amsterdam and director of the Jewish Cabaret Ensemble, described the atmosphere in the Hollandsche Schouwburg in the early years of the German occupation. This mood would not change, not even when the building was officially renamed the Joodsche Schouwburg [Jewish Theatre]. The change of name was the result of an order issued by the Nazi authorities on 15 September 1941, whereby Jews were forbidden to visit theatres, concert halls, cafés, and restaurants. This order represented another step on the way to the total exclusion of Dutch Jews from social and cultural life.

For the time being, though, the Nazis’ measures did not bring Jewish cultural life in Amsterdam to a standstill. On the contrary, cultural activities by and for Jews took place in numerous places – sometimes clandestinely, mostly legally – and included theatrical productions, lectures, dance, and musical performances. The Jewish Schouwburg was the most important cultural centre; it hosted music, cabaret, drama, light opera, ballet, art classes, and the visual arts; it was a place where people could momentarily forget the miseries of the day. From November 1941, the theatre was home to a kind of overarching cultural organization until the building was requisitioned as an assembly and deportation site in July 1942.

The story of the Jewish Schouwburg is one that cannot be told in isolation. In both Nazi Germany after 1933 and in the countries that were occupied from 1939, Jewish cultural life continued – right up to the ghettos, the transit camps, the labour and concentration camps, and the SS sub-camps. As mentioned above, some of these cultural activities took place clandestinely, but most were held with the consent of the Nazi authorities, the Jewish councils, or camp SS officers.

In retrospect, these energetic attempts to maintain a cultural life under the shadow of persecution might seem astonishing, but when one looks closely at people's motives, it is less surprising.