Thank you Pieter. I was aware of the Dutch huge share in fighting the Germans. But if you are aware of no system collaboration in Poland how can you at the same time claim the Dutch were no better or worse than the Poles.
Livia,
You are right and correct in asking this question, because it had to be asked in a honest discussion. I will try to explain why I made that statement and what was the reason behind it. First, the open collaboration was surely much larger in the Netherlands.
That had two reasons. First, in the Netherlands there was no tradition and history of animosity, agression and occupation before the Second World war (1940-1945).
The Dutch National Socialists were first oriented on Italian fascism, because Musolini was seen as a great leader by many in the twenties and thirtees. Only halfway the thirties the orientation became more focussed on Germany and Hitler as a "
great leader".
The popularity of
Fascism,
National-socialism and
Corporatism had various reasons. First of all there was the fear for and hatred against
Communism (
Bolsjewism) and
Socialism. In november 1917, inspired by the
Russian Revolution of 1917 and the
German Revolution of 1918, the Socialist
Pieter Jelles Troelstra (1860 - 1930) leader of the Dutch branch of Social-democracy made one of the moves that would guarantee him a place in parliamentary history:
the proclamation of the socialist revolution.
The peope who did not belonged to the Non-Socialistic pilar nor the Communist party did not forget that. The thirtees were called the "
Crisis years" in the Netherlands, with huge unemployment, poverty strikes, riots and political extremism from left to right.
The demands for a strong leader or leadership,
Law and Order, and Nationalist tendencies rose in that years. Many people were disappointed in
Democracy, and disliked
Capitalism, and
feared a Bolsjewist revolution in Europe. These people, who mainly belonged to the Middle classes, agricultural class and the academic class (rightwing intellectuals), turned to
Fascism,
Nationalism, Chauvinistic views and
National-Socialism. There was a climate of retreating towards the own pilar (Socialist -secular-, Protestant, Catholic, or Liberal-conservative -secular-), but in the same time people of several pilars were attracted to these new totalitarian ideologies, in which they saw or dedicated their hope for national salvation, resurection of the Old Republic of the Seven Provinces,
National Unity, Dutch pride and economical stability. National-socialism was attractive to many Dutch, because the Dutch were seen or portrayed by the Nazi propaganda as fellow aryans, or a Germanistic brother people,
and people saw only the resurection of Germany under Nazi-rule.
Like in other European countries a lot of people disliked jews for various reasons.
First you had the christian anti-semitism, the jews were seen as the killers of Christs,
secondly jews were seen as aliens, because they had differant customs, a differant religion, and the most jews were Socialists, and therefor seen by the Non-left majority as the "
Reds", part of the
Bolsjewist danger, eventhough most Social-democrats were supporters of the Parlaimentairy democracy. Thirdly, the most important reason,
most Dutch shops were owned by a Catholic Middle class and many of them did not like the strong Jewish competition. An example was the competition between the department stores,
Bijenkorf,
HEMA and
Vroom & Dreesmann, the first two were Jewish and the third Catholic. Both exist until today, but Bijenkorf is not in Jewish hands anymore. All three belong to the same Holding today. It were differant times than today, and people were just segregated in Pilars, social classes and cultural lifestiles.
Social unrestAs most other countries the Netherlands experienced significant social unrest during the Great Depression. But except for a number of impressive events this unrest was actually quite limited in scale. Statistics of labour strikes for example show that during the 1931-1937 period strikes were actually less common in the Netherlands than in the previous years of economic stability from 1925 to 1930. At the height of the Great Depression in the Netherlands the number of strikes was lowest. Another form of protest was rentstriking, the refusal by a tenant to pay rent to a landlord. This form of protest was also quite limited in scale, partly because of harsh government intervention. More impressive was the strike or mutiny in 1933 of the sailors of HNLMS De Zeven Provinciën, an armored ship of the Royal Netherlands Navy. As earlier in the United Kingdom (Invergordon Mutiny) the sailors protested a cut of their wages. The mutiny ended when the Dutch army bombed the ship, killing 22 of the sailors and forcing the rest of the crew to surrender. In 1934 another impressive event took place known as the Jordaan riot. A reduction of the already low government unemployment support sparked protest and riots in several cities in the Netherlands, most strongly in the Jordaan neighbourhood of Amsterdam. Between July 4th and July 9th the riots and subsequent harsh intervention by police and military police claimed 6 lives and wounded dozens more. The upheaval of the Great Depression can also be linked to a rise of xenophobia and the, albeit limited, success of the Dutch National Socialist party (Nationaal Socialistische Beweging). Founded in 1931 the NSB gained some popularity during the depression, with a peak of support in terms of its membership in 1936. When the strength of the depression lessened after 1937 support for the NSB fell again.
Back to the question:
Livia, you will say, we had the same kind of developments in Poland, what's the differance? My answer is: You did not have the Pilars, which devided the Polish population, you had your strong National Unity and a clear Polish Patriotism during,
before and after the
Sanacja regime (1926-1935) of
Pilsudski. Maybe the Jews and some minorities had their Pilars, but the vast majority of Poles were Catholic, were linked to some kind of Polish Patriotism, and the Polish economy was booming.
In the Netherlands the devidance between the several social classes was huge, the political orientation was often linked to the social class, religion and National orientation or not. The Dutch jews were also devided between rich employers, community leaders,
business people and rulers on one side and the poor masses of skilled and unskilled workers. The Dutch Unions and Social-democracy has Jewish roots next to the Calvinist roots of the Red ministers (pastors), because the first large workers Union was the General Dutch Diamond Workers Union, ANDB, from whom most members and leaders were Jews. This union laid the foundation for the later Dutch Labour Party (SDAP).
Back to the topic again with my conclusion:
The Dutch had a large collaboration with the Germans, by open collaboration by Dutch National Socialists, police, militairy police and the Dutch railways, but Poland had a large
direct and indirect cooperation with the Germans too. You had many secret traitors who deliverd jews in to the Nazi's, by information or active collaboration with the SD, Gestapo, Gendarmes or the (Polish) Blue Police. You had the Polish mobs who hunted jews in various towns and villages (these people were anonymous and will stay anonumous, so we have no statistics of that. But there are Polish and jewish witnesses of that).
Finally you had far right elements who combatting the Nazi's but in the same time delivered their local jews to the same Nazi's.
The Dutch and Polish collaboration with the Nazi's were differant, but the results were the same, the deaths of numerous Jewish men, women and children, and the Polish and Dutch people who hid them. The Polish resistance was larger than the Dutch, but many of the tactics, strategies and actions of the Polish and Dutch resistance were the same.
Both killed traitors, both killed compatriots who betrayed Jewish countrymen, both were involved in sabotage actions against German and Dutch trains. Both collaborated with Jews who hid themselves and Jewish resistance and both lost a lot of members in German prisons and concentration camps. In both countries a minority was brave,
active and risked their lives. In both countries the majority was indifferant, and in both countries a substantial minority collaborated with the German occupiers out of opportunistic (materialistic and financial) reasons.
This was just my "subjective" opinion, with some "objective" information added to it.
I do not see just
black and
white in this dark period of mankind, because I also see a lot of
grey inbetween them, the
grey of shadows, perspective, distances, the clothes and, the grass, streets and wall and people of that time.
Pieter
Links:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Netherlands_in_World_War_IIwww.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/netherlands.htmlen.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Netherlandsen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Jelles_Troelstraen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression_in_the_Netherlandspl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etnografiapl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratyfikacja_%28socjologia%29Department stores:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bijenkorfen.wikipedia.org/wiki/HEMA_%28store%29en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vroom_%26_DreesmannDutch Jewish entrepreneurs:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_van_den_Bergh