Februari strike 1941 Amsterdam

[pieter]

Februari strike 1941 Amsterdam



(Tuesday, February 25, 1941; during the era of The Holocaust, part of World War II) — The February Strike, a general strike in the German-occupied Netherlands organized by the then-outlawed Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN) in defense of persecuted Dutch Jews, began today following a series of arrests and pogroms held by the Germans in the Jewish neighborhood (Jodenbuurt) in Amsterdam.

The strike lasted for two days; on Feb. 26, 300,000 people joined it. The strike was harshly suppressed by the Germans after three days.

The February Strike is considered to be the first public protest against the Nazis in occupied Europe, and the only mass protest against the deportation of Jews to be organized by non-Jews.


The deportation of the Amsterdam jews in Februari 1941 caused the rage of the Amsterdam workers and they went on strike to protest the arrest of their jewish working class colleagues and fellow Amsterdam people. The men in these black and white images were sent to places like the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, where most of them died within the year.


The deportation of the Amsterdam jews in Februari 1941 caused the rage of the Amsterdam workers and they went on strike to protest the arrest of their jewish working class colleagues and fellow Amsterdam people. The men in these black and white images were sent to places like the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, where most of them died within the year.


The deportation of the Amsterdam jews in Februari 1941 caused the rage of the Amsterdam workers and they went on strike to protest the arrest of their jewish working class colleagues and fellow Amsterdam people. The men in these black and white images were sent to places like the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, where most of them died within the year.


The deportation of the Amsterdam jews in Februari 1941 caused the rage of the Amsterdam workers and they went on strike to protest the arrest of their jewish working class colleagues and fellow Amsterdam people. The men in these black and white images were sent to places like the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, where most of them died within the year.


The deportation of the Amsterdam jews in Februari 1941 caused the rage of the Amsterdam workers and they went on strike to protest the arrest of their jewish working class colleagues and fellow Amsterdam people. The men in these black and white images were sent to places like the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, where most of them died within the year.


The deportation of the Amsterdam jews in Februari 1941 caused the rage of the Amsterdam workers and they went on strike to protest the arrest of their jewish working class colleagues and fellow Amsterdam people. The men in these black and white images were sent to places like the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, where most of them died within the year.


The deportation of the Amsterdam jews in Februari 1941 caused the rage of the Amsterdam workers and they went on strike to protest the arrest of their jewish working class colleagues and fellow Amsterdam people. The men in these black and white images were sent to places like the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, where most of them died within the year.


The deportation of the Amsterdam jews in Februari 1941 caused the rage of the Amsterdam workers and they went on strike to protest the arrest of their jewish working class colleagues and fellow Amsterdam people. The men in these black and white images were sent to places like the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, where most of them died within the year.


The deportation of the Amsterdam jews in Februari 1941 caused the rage of the Amsterdam workers and they went on strike to protest the arrest of their jewish working class colleagues and fellow Amsterdam people. The men in these black and white images were sent to places like the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, where most of them died within the year.


The deportation of the Amsterdam jews in Februari 1941 caused the rage of the Amsterdam workers and they went on strike to protest the arrest of their jewish working class colleagues and fellow Amsterdam people. The men in these black and white images were sent to places like the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, where most of them died within the year.


Rounded up Dutch Amsterdam jews are taken away to the Dutch transit camp Polizeiliches Durchgangslager Schoorl. Schoorl is a village in the Dutch province of North Holland. Later these men and boys were transported from Durchgangslager Schoorl to the extermination camps Buchenwald and Mauthausen. Of the hundreds of men and boys that were arrested and transported to the nazi concentration camps, only 2 boys (young men) survived. Most men died due to extremly hard slave work conditions, little food and maltreatment by camp guards of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV; literally "Death's Head Units") the SS organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps for Nazi Germany, and Kapo's, fellow prisoners whom were given more power than other camp prisoners and turned into monsters, sadistic killers and henchmen of the SS-Totenkopfverbände camp guards and higher ranking SS officers of the SS-Totenkopfverbände there.

[pieter]

The February Strike


The statue, the Docker, represents the Februari Strike on the Jonas Daniël Meijer Square in Amsterdam

The February Strike (Dutch: Februaristaking) was a general strike in the German-occupied Netherlands in 1941, during World War II, organized by the then-outlawed Communist Party of the Netherlands (The CPN) in defence of persecuted Dutch Jews and against the anti-Jewish measures and activities of the Nazis in general.

The direct causes were a series of arrests and pogroms held by the Germans in the Jewish neighbourhood of Amsterdam, the Jodenbuurt. It started on 25 February 1941 and lasted for two days; on 26 February, 300,000 people joined the strike. The strike was harshly suppressed by the Germans after three days.

The 1941 February Strike is considered to be the first public protest against the Nazis in occupied Europe, and the only mass protest against the deportation of Jews to be organized by non-Jews.

Background



The Netherlands surrendered to Nazi Germany in May 1940, and the first anti-Jewish measures (the barring of Jews from the air-raid defence services) began in June 1940. These culminated in November 1940 in the removal of all Jews from public positions, including universities, which led directly to student protests in Leiden and elsewhere. At the same time, there was an increasing feeling of unrest amongst workers in Amsterdam, especially the workers at the shipyards in Amsterdam-Noord, who were threatened with forced labour in Germany.

Cause

As tensions rose, the Dutch pro-Nazi movement NSB and its streetfighting arm, the WA ("Weerbaarheidsafdeling" - defence section), were involved in a series of provocations in Jewish neighbourhoods in Amsterdam. This eventually led to a series of street battles between the WA and Jewish self-defence groups and their supporters, culminating in a pitched battle on 11 February 1941 on the Waterlooplein (Waterloo Square) in which WA member Hendrik Koot was badly wounded. He died of his injuries on 14 February 1941.


The WA ("Weerbaarheidsafdeling" - defence section) of the Nazi NSB party were involved in a series of provocations in Jewish neighbourhoods in Amsterdam


Hendrik Evert Koot (5 April 1898 – 14 February 1941) was a Dutch collaborator with the German occupying forces during World War II. A member of the WA, the paramilitary wing of the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (NSB), he was beaten up by members of a local knokploeg ("action group") in Amsterdam on 11 February 1941. His injuries were so severe that he died a few days later. His death was seized by the German authorities to start raids in the Jodenbuurt, the Amsterdam Jewish quarters, which in turn led to the February strike.[1] Another element of Nazi retaliation was the installation of a Judenrat in Amsterdam. ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrik_Koot )

On 12 February 1941, German soldiers, assisted by Dutch police, encircled the old Jewish neighbourhood and cordoned it off from the rest of the city by putting up barbed wire, opening bridges and putting in police checkpoints. This neighbourhood was now forbidden for non-Jews.

On 19 February, the German Grüne Polizei (Ordnungspolizei) stormed into the Koco ice-cream salon in the Van Woustraat. In the fight that ensued, several police officers were wounded. Revenge for this and other fights came in the weekend of 22–23 February, when a large-scale pogrom was undertaken by the Germans. 425 Jewish men of age 20–35 were taken hostage and imprisoned in Kamp Schoorl and eventually sent to the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, where most of them died within the year. Of 425, only two survived.


The deportation of the Amsterdam jews in Februari 1941 caused the rage of the Amsterdam workers and they went on strike to protest the arrest of their jewish working class colleagues and fellow Amsterdam people. The men in these black and white images were sent to places like the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, where most of them died within the year.


The deportation of the Amsterdam jews in Februari 1941 caused the rage of the Amsterdam workers and they went on strike to protest the arrest of their jewish working class colleagues and fellow Amsterdam people. The men in these black and white images were sent to places like the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, where most of them died within the year.


The deportation of the Amsterdam jews in Februari 1941 caused the rage of the Amsterdam workers and they went on strike to protest the arrest of their jewish working class colleagues and fellow Amsterdam people. The men in these black and white images were sent to places like the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, where most of them died within the year.


The deportation of the Amsterdam jews in Februari 1941 caused the rage of the Amsterdam workers and they went on strike to protest the arrest of their jewish working class colleagues and fellow Amsterdam people. The men in these black and white images were sent to places like the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, where most of them died within the year.


Members of the Grüne Polizei (Ordnungspolizei) in Amsterdam in the period of the German occupation of the Netherlands 1940-1945

The strike


Leaflet announcing the strike

Following this pogrom, on 24 February, an open-air meeting was held on the Noordermarkt to organise a strike to protest against the pogrom as well as the forced labour in Germany. The Communist Party of the Netherlands, made illegal by the Germans, printed and spread a call to strike throughout the city the next morning. The first to strike were the city's tram drivers, followed by other city services as well as companies like De Bijenkorf and schools. Eventually 300,000 people joined in the strike, bringing much of the city to a halt and catching the Germans by surprise.[4] Though the Germans immediately took measures to suppress the strike, which had grown spontaneously as other workers followed the example of the tram drivers, it still spread to other areas, including Zaanstad, Kennemerland in the west, Bussum, Hilversum and Utrecht in the east and the south. The strike did not last long. By 27 February, much of it had been suppressed by the German police. Although ultimately unsuccessful, it was significant in that it was the first and only direct action against the Nazis' treatment of Jews in Europe.

The next strike would be student strikes in November 1941, and after that the large April–May strikes in 1943 that ushered in a period of armed covert resistance on a national scale.

In the rest of Nazi-occupied Europe the Greeks in April 1942, the Danes starting in the summer of 1943, the Luxemburgers in August 1942, the Belgians in May 1941, the Norwegians in September 1941 and the North French miners in May–June 1941 also went on strike, but not as early as the Dutch strike of February 1941 and it has to be noted that the February strike in Amsterdam was the only strike against the way Jews were treated by the Germans in Nazi-occupied Europe.

Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

Cap of a Dutch Nazi WA (Weerafdeling) para-military organisation of the Nazi NSB party

[pieter]

[pieter]

Animation for the remembrance of The Strike of February 1941 for the NOS


Commemoration of the February strike at the Dockworker in Amsterdam 2020


At the Dockworker in Amsterdam, the February Strike 1941 was commemorated for the 77th time on February 25, 2020.

The February strike of 1941 made a great impression both nationally and internationally. It was the only general political strike in Europe against the anti-Jewish measures taken by the Nazis in occupied territory. Many tens of thousands of civilians gave up work and stood up for the persecuted Jewish population. The strike in Amsterdam was immediately followed in other places. There were also strikes in the Zaanstreek, Kennemerland, Utrecht, Hilversum and Weesp. The February strike was a source of inspiration for many Dutch people.

City coat of arms


City coat of arms; "Heroic, determined, merciful"

In 1946, as a token of recognition and appreciation, Queen Wilhelmina granted the municipality of Amsterdam the motto "Heroic, determined, merciful". This has since been added to the city's coat of arms. The February strike still has an important meaning. People are therefore cordially invited to participate in the parade along the Docker.

Commemoration



During the commemoration, Liesbeth van der Horst, director of the Resistance Museum Amsterdam, gave a speech. Actor André van Duin recited two poems. There was also a performance by Joy Wielkens and Vlado Spisiak. They performed Willem Wilmink's poem Ben Ali Libi as a song. The opening speech was from the new chairmen of the committee: Jaïr Stranders and Thijs Middeldorp.

[Jaga]

Pieter,

good that you brought back information about this 80 anniversary. Dutch people can be proud that they fought for all of their citizens. Very cruel pictures.