When writing the history of the deportation and murder of more than 100,000 Jewish citizens from the Netherlands, there is much to be said for starting in Germany; for it was there that the genocide was conceived and organized, with an unparalleled degree of fervour and systemization. At the same time, this is primarily a history of people: innocent individuals who fell victim to a racist policy of persecution, individuals with their own stories, stories that are worth telling.

It is possible to tell the stories of some of these individuals, because they kept diaries during the war; they include Anne Frank and Etty Hillesum, two youthful, witty spirits who perished in the camps, yet their testimonies became famous across the world and joined the canon of testimonial literature. Others were able to tell their stories after the war, some having escaped death in the most miraculous ways; they include Jules Schelvis, one of the few survivors of Sobibór; Sedje Hémon, the visual artist, violinist, and composer who joined the resistance, was betrayed by her neighbours, and survived Auschwitz as a member of the camp orchestra; and the writer and lawyer Abel Herzberg, who was in Bergen-Belsen with his wife, Thea. Both survived the war, as did their three children, who were in hiding in the Netherlands.

But there are also many victims of whom we know little or nothing, sometimes no more than a name on a transport list. Some, mere babies and small children, were too young to leave traces behind. We know little or nothing of others because the potential witnesses in their surroundings – family members, colleagues, and neighbours – met the same fate: they were rounded up, deported, and murdered. This was true of millions of victims of the Nazi persecution and it is also precisely why the culture of remembrance, in the Netherlands and elsewhere, pays so much attention to the naming of names – at remembrance ceremonies or on monuments and digital sites – in order to restore their identities, which the perpetrators of the genocide deliberately attempted to erase.

Occupation

The German army needed five days to bring the Netherlands to its knees after it invaded the country on 10 May 1940.