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The rescue of Jews from Nazipersecution: A Western EuropeanperspectiveBob MoorePublished online: 03 Aug 2010.

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Journal of Genocide Research (2003), 5(2), June, 293–308

The rescue of Jews from Nazipersecution: a Western EuropeanperspectiveBOB MOORE

The term “rescue,” when applied to the Jews in Nazi-occupied Western Europe,has come to include a whole range of disparate activities, including helpingpeople escape from Nazi-controlled areas to the safety of neutral or Alliedterritory and also the various external initiatives to negotiate with the Nazis toexchange or “buy” Jews and transport them to safety.1 However, the intentionhere is to restrict discussion to the groups and individuals who helped to shelterJews within occupied Western Europe, either for the duration of the war, or untilthey could be moved elsewhere. This will include some comments on Jewishself-help but will focus primarily on the motivation behind non-Jewish (indige-nous) help for Jewish adults and children in hiding. For reasons of brevity, theextent of the comparison has been limited. The analysis presented here is basedprimarily on detailed work carried out on the Netherlands and, where possible,comparisons and contrasts have been drawn with Belgium and France.

The intention, therefore, is to begin with an examination of the historiographyon the subject to date before dealing with the context of rescue and rescueactivities in all three countries. While the comparison between these neighbour-ing states may seem relatively straightforward, it is nonetheless important torecognise some important differences: in the nature of German rule; the natureof the victims; and in the specific circumstances in each country. It is alsoimportant to bear in mind that these states experienced widely differing levels ofJewish mortality. The Jews in the Netherlands suffered more than 75% mortality,while the figure for Belgium was around 40% and for France approximately25%. Thus, although the extent of rescue activities may not have been adefinitive factor, it may nonetheless have had some impact on these differinglevels of Jewish survival.2

I

The historiography of rescue and rescuers could be regarded as somewhatunusual in that it is dominated by sociological rather than historical studies. Forexample, the altruistic personality project led by Sam and Pearl Oliner was amajor study of rescuers and their motivation.3 However, their aim was to identifypatterns of individual behaviour, which were specifically and exclusively altruis-

ISSN 1462-3528 print; ISSN 1469-9494 online/03/020293-16 2003 Research Network in Genocide StudiesDOI: 10.1080/1462352032000079448

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tic. The researchers relied on interview material, which they had themselvesgathered, but their methodology served to exclude much material which mighthave been used in an historical study. Other important sociological studies havefollowed, perhaps the most well-known being those by Nechama Tec and EvaFogelmann.4 All have undoubtedly contributed a great deal to an understandingof the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust period, but their terms of referencein examining positive traits in human behaviour and motivation have inevitablyexcluded or marginalised elements of the subject which were not central to theirrespective lines of enquiry. As a result, one knows a great deal about thewell-motivated rescuers who were to be found in every European country, butmuch less about the darker and possibly less altruistic elements of rescue whichwere also present. To some extent, this limited perception has been reinforcedby other books, which have told or retold the deeds of well-known individualrescuers and their families.5 While there is no doubt that these stories deservepublication and recognition, there has been a tendency to concentrate on peoplewho had found their way to North America after the war, or at least those whocould communicate in English. Thus although it is important not to decry orundervalue the achievements of these brave people who often put their lives andtheir families lives at risk in attempting to save others from Nazi persecution, itremains the case that their experiences provide only a partial picture of rescueas a whole.

One other reservation which has to be made about this type of research is onewhich will be familiar to all those who have engaged in the collection of oraltestimony. The mere fact that, for good methodological reasons, all the materialused in these sociological studies has been collected 20, 30 or 40 years after theevent means that the testimony has to be treated with some care. Intervieweesmay well place different priorities and different emphases on both their motiv-ation and actions in the light of subsequent experiences when asked to commentmany years after the event. While it is unusual for scholars to be able to comparerescuer testimony recorded at the time with that collected many years after theevent, a few cases where this has been possible do show up some discrepancies.

For whatever reason, historical analysis on rescue and rescuers has beensomewhat limited. A major international conference organised by Yad Vashemin 1974 saw the publication of several important papers,6 but these did notnecessarily lead to immediate further research, especially in relation to WesternEurope. The identification and honouring of the “righteous among the nations”by Yad Vashem and its continuing research undoubtedly served to increaseinterest in the subject, but even this vast resource may give a slightly falseimpression of the totality of rescue, relying as it does on independent (survivor)testimony to validate an award. This is not to underestimate its significance. Ithas often been used by scholars as a check on interview material but perhapsmore importantly has formed the basis for the work of Mordechai Paldiel andothers in positing some general theories on the nature of rescue and thedevelopment of typologies of the motivations behind the actions of individualrescuers.7

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In looking at more general works on the Second World War, it is clear thatrescue has been approached in very specific ways. Thus there are studies, whichrefer to the “Christian” rescue of Jews, ignoring the role played by those whowere either atheist, agnostic, or motivated by factors other than religious belief.In these analyses, rescue is seen as part of the “Christian” (as opposed tonon-Jewish) response to the plight of the Jews. Essentially, they seek to explainand isolate the factors, which led some Christians actively to help Jews in need,while the majority stood by and did nothing. At worst, they become eitherblanket condemnations of Christian culture and morality for failing to provideany help, or an apologia for the bystanders, attempting to highlight the heroicfrom among the inactive masses. It is remarkable, however, that when theChristian churches rushed into print after the war to highlight their role inresisting Nazi occupation, while including the protests of senior clerics and theinstitutional response of the churches as a whole to the plight of the Jews, theyoften ignored the part played by individual pastors or priests and their congrega-tions in hiding and rescuing Jews from deportation and death.8

Another feature of the historiography is the huge number of memoirs andbiographies of both rescuers and rescued.9 One thinks here of publications onhigh profile individuals such as Raoul Wallenberg or Varian Fry, or even thefictionalised account of Oskar Schindler by Thomas Keneally; but for each ofthese celebrated individuals, there are 10 or 20 less well-known people whosestories have also been told in this way.10 Instructive in their own right, these arenonetheless essentially individual narratives and inevitably reflect the testi-monies of survivors rather than those who fell victim to Nazi persecution.11

Moreover, their number does not lend itself to any meaningful quantitative orqualitative analysis of rescue in any given country or area. Published historieswhich deal with individual rescue networks have now started to appear and therescue of Jews also appears as an element in general national histories of theHolocaust and occasionally in histories of the occupation period as a whole.12

Nonetheless, the weight of the published literature to date provides a ratheruneven analysis of the subject.

What has been lacking is a synthesis which places the actions or rescuers andrescued into a wider social context. In other words, the motivation of rescuersand the behaviour of those rescued can only be fully understood against thebackground of the society in which they lived and the nature of Nazi rule andits impact on that society. In effect, what is required is an approach to the studyof rescue which mirrors that begun in the late 1970s to study opposition anddissent within Nazi Germany13 and which has increasingly been taken up byscholars of resistance. To paraphrase the work of Jacques Semelin, instead ofanalysing rescuers and rescue organisations in and of themselves, it is necessaryto analyse them in relation to the psychological and sociological contexts fromwhich they emerge and which make their development possible.14 One majoradvantage of this approach is that it highlights a different set of questions. Forexample, focus on society as a whole serves to illuminate more clearly thepossibilities for rescue in a given environment. It also raises questions about the

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ways in which people became involved in rescue work and whether individualsfrom all sections of society or all areas of the country had an equal opportunityto participate. Placing the history of rescue in this wider context is beyond thescope of a short article, but what follows is an attempt to raise a few pertinentquestions about the nature of rescue from this perspective.

II

To begin with the nature of the occupation, there are some notable differencesin the context of German rule in the three countries which undoubtedly affectedthe nature and extent of possible rescue activities. For example, the organisationof German rule varied a great deal. While the Netherlands was given a Germancivilian leadership under the control of Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart tooversee the operation of the Dutch bureaucratic machinery, Belgium and theoccupied zones of northern and western France were placed under militarycontrol. It has been argued that this gave more scope for the SS to operate in theNetherlands than elsewhere, and, therefore, facilitated the implementation of theFinal Solution. Moreover, the accommodations reached between occupiers andboth the French and Belgian authorities set limits to the level of cooperation.15

For example, while the Germans received almost complete support from theAmsterdam police in rounding up Jews, especially after they had introduced theirown policemen into positions of authority,16 national and political considerationsin Belgium and France prevented this from happening. This is not to exoneratethe police in the latter two countries, as evidenced by the alacrity with which theVichy police were prepared to round up and deport foreign Jews from France.17

However, the local and community knowledge which the police could contributeto Nazi plans to deport the Jews, or conversely be told to withhold, was animportant factor in the success or failure of Jewish survival underground.

One factor which has often been highlighted to explain the compliance of bothJews and non-Jews to the demands of the occupying power in the Netherlandsis the concept of gezagsgetrouwheid (deference to authority). This has been usedto explain both the way which the Jewish elite set up organisations to coordinatewith the Germans, the passivity of the Jewish population at large in waiting tobe arrested, and the reticence of the population at large to extend help to thoseJews who did attempt to go underground. This can be contrasted with the moresuspicious attitude adopted towards the state and its institutions in both Franceand Belgium by both the Jewish and non-Jewish populations. This may havebeen especially true in Belgium where the population as a whole had experienceof a previous German occupation, and 95% of the Jews were recent immigrantsfrom Eastern Europe, many of whom had had firsthand experience of persecutionat the hands of the Tsarist Russian or post-1918 Polish state machinery. Thissuspicion may help to explain why Jewish self-help (defence) organisations werea feature in both Belgium and France, and emerged long before more widespreadand comprehensive non-Jewish resistance against Nazi occupation policies.18

Again, this is in stark contrast to the Netherlands where this internal resistance

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to German demands signally failed to appear. Indeed, the relationship betweenthe Jewish communities and the German occupiers was characterised by a degreeof cooperation not seen elsewhere, with the creation of a Jewish Council19 morein line with those established in Eastern Europe than anything else seen in theWest. The Germans were also able to reinforce this compliance by agreeing toa series of exemptions from deportation for Jewish Council employees, exemp-tions which although designated as “bis auf weiteres” (until further notice) tookon an almost talismanic quality for their holders and ensured their continuingcooperation. While the Germans did take some steps to create or adapt similarorganisations in both Belgium (Association des Juifs en Belgique, AJB) andFrance (Union Generale des Israelites de France, UGIF), these latter two neveroperated in the same way as the Amsterdam Jewish Council. Thus it is importantto note that there were some substantial differences in the nature of Jewishleadership in the three countries, with the Jewish communities in both Belgiumand France having a more sceptical and critical view of the German occupationthan those in the Netherlands. However, it would be wrong to generalise too faron this as at least one Dutch provincial Jewish Council, in Enschede, was far lesscooperative towards the Germans than its Amsterdam counterpart and activelyencouraged Jews to go underground to escape deportation.20

Turning to the circumstances for Jews in each country, much has been madeof the differences in topography between the Netherlands on the one hand andFrance and Belgium on the other. While the lack of isolated areas in which tohide does initially seem important, and may have deterred some AmsterdamJews from venturing into the countryside, the fact that several hundred thousandlater escapees from forced labour were able to “hide” in the Netherlands doesprovide a rather different picture. However, it cannot be denied that theNetherlands was further from a “safe” border than either Belgium or France. Inthe case of France, there was not only the unoccupied zone which provided adegree of protection until (and even after) November 1942, but also thepossibility, albeit hazardous, of reaching the Spanish or Swiss frontier. A furtherdifference which seems to have made a crucial contrast between the Netherlandsand the other two countries was the comprehensive population records kept bythe Dutch administration and the wartime activities of the population registry tomake a system of identity cards as comprehensive as possible. While bothFrance and Belgium also had systems of this nature, they were never so carefullyconstructed, maintained or comprehensive.21 Moreover, because the intendedvictims thought that the state (and therefore the occupying Germans) had all thisinformation, and could easily check the veracity of identity documents, theyperceived going into hiding as problematic. These various factors, together withthe traditional deference to authority may help to explain why so many Jews inthe Netherlands who were unprotected by any special status took no steps to gounderground after the initial deportations, and while not going to the collectingpoints voluntarily nonetheless waited at home to be arrested by the authorities.Other factors have been put forward to explain this passivity, including familycircumstances, dependent relatives and even refusal to leave material posses-

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sions; yet all these elements were undoubtedly common to the Jewish popula-tions in all three countries and cannot be seen as having any special sway in theNetherlands.

These same factors undoubtedly also affected the non-Jewish populations ofoccupied countries. As has been shown in many studies on the development ofresistance activities, dissent, opposition and finally active steps to defeat theobjectives of the occupier took time to develop. In this context, societies with agreater tradition of opposition to state authority may have been quicker torespond to the threats posed by Nazi occupation than those more wedded toobedience to authority. More important in influencing the actions of individualsengaging in rescue activities—whether of Jews or non-Jews—may well havebeen the perceived efficiency of the Nazi occupation “machine” and its collabo-rators, the penalties exacted for transgressions of specific laws, and the likeli-hood of being caught. Again, to make sense of rescue activities, it is essentialto have a clear understanding of how a society, as well as particular groups andindividuals within it, understood and reacted to the specifics of Nazi occupation.

III

An area of comparison which shows marked contrasts between the threecountries is in relation to Jewish self-help. Given the conformist stances of mostJewish organisations in the Netherlands, the possibilities for using existingstructures to help Jews trying to avoid arrest and deportation were limited.Perhaps the most important exception was the Oosteinde group, which was basedaround a club for Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria. However, eventhis operated on a very small scale and was probably instrumental in helpingonly a few dozen people.22 This seems in stark contrast to the elements ofself-help which emerged in Belgium and France long before the first deporta-tions began in the summer of 1942. For France, Jacques Adler has shown howforeign Jews organised themselves to meet the threat from the Germans. It isundoubtedly true that a much larger proportion had allegiances to left-wingpolitical groups including the communists, and this facilitated the creation andgrowth of clandestine organisations.23 However, there were also organisationsnot of the Left such as the Comite Amelot which also served to ally disparateJewish groups.24 While the clandestine Jewish organisations in France seem tohave operated independently and even in advance of other forms of resistanceactivity, in Belgium, the creation of the Comite de Defence des Juifs (CDJ)seems to have had much closer ties with other resistance organisations. Nonethe-less, this alliance of disparate Jewish groups, again including the communists,25

undoubtedly had a similar effect in introducing the Jewish community toclandestine activity at an early stage, providing both a counterweight to officialorganisations such as the AJB as well as access to the essential elementsnecessary for life in hiding, such as forged or stolen identity papers and rationcards.

Turning to the non-Jewish rescuers, scholars are agreed on the complexity of

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attributing precise motivations or isolating single factors which explain theirbehaviour. This is complicated still further when attempts are made to elicitinformation from such rescuers years after the event. In spite of these difficulties,it is nonetheless possible to provide an outline typology of the main determiningfactors, both for individual rescuers and those who became involved in organisedgroups.

The first and most obvious rescuers came from individuals who had somepersonal contact with the persecuted. This might involve family friends or nearneighbours, who were offered help and shelter when their plight became clear.The incidence of this type of rescuer would to some extent be determined by thedegree of contact in any given community between Jews and non-Jews. Thegreater the degree of assimilation within the community, the more likely thatJews would have non-Jewish acquaintances capable of offering help. While thisoccurred within all social classes, there seems to have been a greater preponder-ance of this type of rescue among the working classes than among lower middleand middle class groups. In the Netherlands, the vertically divided nature ofsociety may have militated against a large number of contacts of this nature.Allied to this form of rescue was that based on a business relationship. The mostfamous example of such an attempted rescue was that engineered by OttoFrank’s partners to save his family.26 If personal contact was an importantfactors, then there were others motivated by an impersonal but direct contactwith elements of Nazi persecution. A number of people who became well-knownrescuers refer to firsthand experience of Nazi ill-treatment of Jews and decidingto act as a result. For example, Marion Pritchard van Binsbergen was moved tobegin helping Jewish children as a result of seeing them being thrown into theback of a truck by German policemen.27

Religious affiliation and strong religious belief have often been cited as majormotivating factors behind individual rescuers, and many examples can be foundin all three countries. This was often expressed in terms of undertaking aChristian duty to help—a duty which often appeared to conflict with Christianteachings on Jews. Certainly, numbers of rescuers have subsequently reflected onthis contradiction between Old and New Testament—between the Jews as God’schosen people and as the killers of Christ.28 Also of note is the high incidenceof devout Protestants among the rescuers in all three countries. Attempts havebeen made to relate this back to the particular faith and dogmas of these groups,but also to the idea that they perceived themselves as persecuted minoritieswithin their own countries, and therefore felt a greater sense of empathy with theJews. Some attempts have also been made to link the social marginality ofrescuers identified in Eastern Europe with the supposed similar marginality ofthese people in the West. While this comparison may work in statistical termsat a national level, it ceases to have much validity when examined in localterms—where the particular religious “minority” may well have been a majorproportion in a given community.29 While devotion to one’s religion may havebeen crucial in some cases, tight-knit rural communities also exhibited otherfeatures which help to explain instances of collective action.

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One crucial element was the role of the parish priest or pastor in mobilisinghelp by influencing congregations by using religious or social precepts. There isno doubt that such leadership was crucial in mobilising help—and maybe givingindividuals the opportunity to become rescuers who would otherwise have nevercome into contact with Jews. One extreme example of this came in theNetherlands where representatives of rescue networks had to explain to a ruralcommunity in the Limburg (Netherlands) who the Jews were before they couldexplain that they were persecuted and in need of help.30 This should not beallowed to undermine the religious principles which undoubtedly motivatedmany individuals—even to the point of believing that God had called them to dothe work of rescue. However, whether this can be attributed to pure altruism isanother matter, as Christian beliefs allow those involved to think that theiractions may contribute to their eternal salvation or provide indicators of theirstatus as one of the elect.

However, there were also social factors that had some effect. Communityleaders could be just as important as priests in forming opinion and creating aclimate where rescue activity was not an isolated, individual act, but more thenorm within a particular village. One devout Calvinist in Drenthe (Netherlands)recorded immediately after the war that no one could be considered as a realmember of his community unless one had a Jew under one’s roof. Social orpeer-group pressure could therefore play a role, as could local traditions. In thissame area, there was a principle of noaberplicht. Loosely translated, this impliedan obligation to help one’s neighbour, dating from a time when these ruralcommunities were largely isolated and had to be self-sufficient. Again, there arereflections of all these tendencies in other communities in both Belgium andFrance.

Disaggregating motivation becomes even more difficult when one adds inother factors. One striking example is the nationalist response where individualswere prepared to undertake anything, which would confound German aims andobjectives. Thus, an orthodox Calvinist family which sheltered more than 200Jews on a few farms in North Holland was led by Johannes Bogaard who, whileundoubtedly devout, had begun his activities primarily as a way of getting backat the hated “moffen” (krauts).31 Nonetheless, he and his family saw helping Jewsin need as natural and part of God’s work.

One final element which is often ignored in this context is the moral impulsebehind rescue which was unconnected with religious belief or church affiliation.While so many published works concentrate on the “Christian” response to theplight of the Jews, it is important to remember that many individuals weremotivated by humanitarian instincts or precepts unconnected with Christianbeliefs.32 This applies not only to the communists, but also to many others on thepolitical Left. There is no doubt that they could be just as committed to helpingthose in need. Indeed, the solidarity shown towards Jews in many working classcommunities undoubtedly parallels anything seen among devout Protestant orCatholic communities in remote rural areas.

It has been suggested that individual rescues (as opposed to ones organised by

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networks) played a larger role in Belgium than in the Netherlands.33 However,it is clear that networks were important in all three countries. There were plentyof organisations which specialised in helping those in hiding, both Jews andnon-Jews. Some used existing organisational structures such as political partiesor church affiliations, while others were specially created. There were alsofamous cases of entire individual communities being involved in acts ofcollective rescue, for example, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in France or Cornement-Louveigne in Belgium. However, research on the Netherlands raises an numberof questions about the nature of this collective rescue and recruitment of helpersand hosts for those in need.

First of all, the importance of motivated individuals to community mobilis-ation helps to explain why these pockets of activity occurred and why therecould be a huge number of rescuers in one town or village and virtually nonein a seemingly similar community. Thus, the idea that it was communities whichperceived themselves as persecuted minorities within their own countries such asthe Huguenots in France and the orthodox Calvinists in the Netherlands whowere likely to show greater empathy towards another persecuted group has to betreated with caution. Without leadership, any feelings towards the Jews wereunlikely to take any practical form. The accounts of activists in the Netherlandsprovide an interesting insight into the processes involved in creating andexpanding networks to meet the ever-increasing need for places to hide.Motivated churchmen could often rely on church elders or stalwart members oftheir congregation to provide the initial help to those in need,34 although suchrequests for help would often originate from the pulpit in veiled form. Priestsand pastors in small communities would also know whom not to involve, eitherbecause they were unreliable, too talkative or unsuitable in some other way.Later, as demand increased and more “addresses” had to be found, so theactivists had to spread their nets wider. In some instances, the secular organiserswould be accompanied by churchmen to vouch for their good faith. Indeed,those approached were often suggested by the churchmen as having the facilitiesand temperament to become hosts. However, reading the accounts of someorganisers it becomes clear that they met widespread refusals and even somehostility. One such organiser, Arnold Douwes, neatly summed up his predica-ment in late 1943:

Finding hiding-places is becoming increasingly difficult. The people who you could rely onthrough thick and thin have long since been involved. It is becoming harder to find peopleprepared to offer hospitality.35

Many of his later recruits seem to have been pressed rather than volunteers:

Finding places for the varied Jewish fugitives was always an issue. First always“temporary” places. People found it hard to say no if you said that the “customer” wouldhave to sleep in the open if they did not take him in. Of course, the result was an argument,but for the most part it turned out better than expected.36

While it is possible to point to impeccable moral, religious or humanitarian

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credentials of many of the instigators of these networks, the ever-increasing needto find accommodation for Jews going into hiding meant spreading the net evermore widely. Douwes recalls spending an evening going round one village toselected houses looking for accommodation and meeting blank refusals every-where. This can be contrasted with the, perhaps atypical, example of LeChambon where, it was said, not a single Chambonnais ever turned away arefugee.37

Even if a householder did agree to take in a fugitive of a temporary basis, heor she would often change their minds. Thus, the organisers developed systemsto counteract this—taking the putative guest with them to make a face-to-facerefusal more difficult, or arriving minutes before the curfew and then more or lessthrowing the guest through the door and giving the host no time to react. Often,the organiser would reinforce the supposedly temporary arrangement by agreeingto return the following day—and then not reappear for two weeks—by whichtime the host and guest had got to know each other a little better. It was also thecase that matching guests and hosts was anything but a precise science. Networkorganisers would try to take account of the age, gender and appearance of thefugitives when choosing appropriate lodgings, but this seldom took account ofclass or cultural distinctions. Certainly, Jews from an urban milieu found itdifficult to adapt to the simple and often crude peasant lifestyles in thecountryside. While there were compromises on both sides, some hosts and guestsproved incompatible: for example, the woman who was used to changing herclothes five or six times a day and could not conceive of living in house withoutdoor washing facilities and sanitation.

Another contrast between the Netherlands and the other two countries seemsto have occurred in the operations of the rescue organisations. In the Netherlands,there were groups created specifically to help Jews, but where organisations hada wider remit to help all those in hiding, including the much larger number offorced labour evaders, then the work for Jews was still kept separate on thegrounds that it held greater risks. Although there were also networks exclusivelyhelping Jews in France and Belgium, other more broadly based organisations donot seem to have made the same deliberate distinctions.38 Again, it may be thecase that hiding Jews was perceived by those involved in the Netherlands asbeing a far more dangerous enterprise than hiding other fugitives from Nazipolicies.

One other element which needs further study is the way in which individualsand households became rescuers. There are many examples where women werethe instigators and prime movers in both individual rescues and entire networksin all three countries.39 In families, was it always the husband or male who madethe decision? Was it a collective decision? Certainly, becoming active rescuersand taking strangers into one’s own home would mean that the day-to-day burdenof feeding and accommodating people in hiding would fall disproportionately onthe female members of the household. There is no reason to suppose that thereare any differences in these issues among rescuers in the three countries, butfurther research may shed new light on this gender element of rescue.

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IV

One area which has been more researched is the rescue of children, althoughwith one exception,40 studies have been conducted on a national rather than acomparative level. What emerges from these studies is the complexity ofmotivation behind the rescuers and the difficulties of drawing conclusions fromwhat is a very incomplete record. Most draw heavily on interviews of thoseinvolved, or the records collected and housed at Yad Vashem, but the sample isinevitably skewed in a number of directions. First of all, there is a bias towardsthe successful rescue and the survival of the child or children involved. Rescueattempts which failed, or where either rescuers or rescued perished during orsoon after the war were unlikely to be recorded or indeed remembered.Secondly, the collection of testimony has often taken place years after the event,with all the difficulties of memory and recall which this creates. Thirdly, thesample is likely to favour rescues which were perceived by both rescuers andrescued as positive experiences. If the period of rescue was perceived by thechildren, or by the rescuers as traumatic in its own right, then the chances ofeither party being willing to talk about it, or record it would be consequentlyreduced.

There is no doubt that children were seen as objects of sympathy parexcellence. Even individuals who thought that Jews had been partially culpablefor the persecution which the Nazis had inflicted on them could not apply thesame criteria to children. They were seen as innocent victims. This distinctionwas certainly evident in the Netherlands, as the following quotation from anetwork organiser makes clear:

Everything was finished when one [of those present] said, “I still have a number of Jewishbabies, what should we do with them?” It was a sort of Jews-market on all sides, here two,here five, in the end there weren’t enough to go round. It was certainly wonderful that thewhole problem was solved so completely. But no one would have an adult Jew.41

In all three countries, there seem to have been a whole range of groups whichhelped children. In France, teachers in Paris and elsewhere were mobilised tohelp by the first Vichy edicts against the Jews and later the Nazi measures andthe introduction of the yellow star. The communist party was also active inhelping Jewish children and reputedly managed to place 1200 of them withnon-Jewish families in the occupied zone. There was also the Comite Inter-Mouvements des Evacues (CIMADE), which had begun as an organisation tohelp refugees expelled from Alsace in 1940 but gradually extended its operationsto help Jews and which by the end of the occupation had safe houses across thecountry. Existing children’s charities were also prominent, most notably theOeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE), which established a clandestine branchin the autumn of 1942. Finally there were also specially created organisationssuch as Les Amities Chretiennes, which operated mainly in the Lyon area. Theseorganisations benefited from the cooperation of Archbishop Saliege of Toulouseand a number of other Catholic Bishops who permitted the use of churchboarding schools, orphanages and religious institutions.42

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In Belgium, the organisational pattern was somewhat different, with theclandestine Jewish CDJ as the driving force behind finding safe havens forchildren and working alongside the Oeuvre Nationale de l’Enfance (ONE),which had a vast network of children’s homes. Other children were rescued byunderground groups, but even many of these eventually found their way to theONE. Rescue also came via the activities of individuals priests or more seniorclerics who provided Jewish children with hiding places in their institutionalfacilities, for example Bishop Kerkhofs in Liege.43 In the Netherlands, the rescueof children seems to have emerged from different quarters. Four clandestineorganisations were created after the deportations began in the summer of 1942.Two were founded by students at Amsterdam and Utrecht Universities, respect-ively, and exploited their contacts (and those of their parents) in the countrysideto find suitable hiding places. A third group, the Naamloze Vennootschap (NV),was created by a Calvinist pastor in Amsterdam, and the fourth, based aroundthe illegal newspaper Trouw, was also connected to orthodox Calvinism. Thesuccess of these organisations depended on the links between clergymen, andbetween the clerics and their parishioners, rather than on the official sanction ofthe various Christian churches. While the Dutch churches were on record incondemning the Nazi persecution of the Jews and some senior churchmen didprovide support for clandestine activities, this seems to have had less practicalvalue than in either Belgium or France.

There was, however, also a darker side to this apparent philanthropy. Not allrescuers or organisations operated with the purest of motives. Paldiel records thatthere were many people in Belgium who sheltered Jewish children in return forsubstantial monetary payments and way beyond the actual expenses incurred incaring for the children,44 and there is little doubt that this pattern was repeatedin both France and the Netherlands. It is also clear that some rescuers saw savingJewish children not just as an end in itself, but as an opportunity to save soulsand convert the objects of their charity to Christianity. All Christian denomina-tions were equally guilty in this regard and the testimonies of surviving childrenare littered with references to their being required to attend church, learn prayersor the catechism, or being required to undergo baptism. The youngest of themcould put up no resistance to this as they knew nothing else, but older childrencould, and did sometimes protest. One young boy hidden in the north-easternNetherlands recorded in his diary:

Today auntie asked me if I wanted to become Gereformeerde [Calvinist]. I won’t do it, Iwon’t let myself be baptised. Of course I’m glad that uncle and auntie have saved me, butthat doesn’t mean I have to pray to the Christian God. Auntie doesn’t understand it. Sheis afraid that I won’t go to heaven if I don’t become a Calvinist.45

In some extreme cases, rescuers even refused to hand back children hiddenduring the occupation to their parents or the authorities. The cases of AnnekeBeekman and Rebecca Meljado in the Netherlands are good examples of this, asis the case of the Finaly brothers in France.46

While some very high profile members of rescue organisations did admit that

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conversion did play a role in their motivation,47 it is important to be carefulabout assuming that all attempts to have children conform to the religiouspractices of the families or communities in which they were sheltered weredriven by the desire to convert. In many cases, hiding a child meant that theyhad to be taken to church to keep up an appearance of normality. If the familywere regular churchgoers, young children could not be left at home alone.Moreover, their cover as evacuee relations would only make sense if they sharedthe faith of the host family. Thus exposure to Christian worship and ritual, oreven learning the rudiments of faith to appear conformist, may not necessarilyhave been intended as a first stage to conversion.

Jewish children also provided childless couples with the opportunity to“adopt” infants without going through the normal screening procedures. Whileinformation on such rescues is rare, some children who survived in hiding havecommented on the motivations behind their “foster-parents” and there is nodoubt that at the end of the occupation some individuals and couples went toinordinate lengths to hang on to the children in their care, for emotional ratherthan religious reasons.48

Information on one other motivation is even more scarce, namely, cases wherethere was a sexual element behind the rescue of children. A number of youngand adolescent girls recorded being the object of unwanted advances from malesin the household where they were sheltered. In most cases, this is likely to havebeen opportunistic rather than a primary motivation on the part of the rescuers.However, the sheltering of Jewish children undoubtedly provided opportunitiesfor paedophiles and for the sexual exploitation of vulnerable individuals.49

V

In conclusion, explaining rescue activities (or their absence) on behalf of Jewsin Nazi-occupied Western Europe remains a complex subject. There is testimonyfrom some of the rescuers and some of the rescued, and analysis based on theiraccounts, but lack definitive answers to many of questions posed in this study.Given that the rescue of Jews was a part of the resistance to Nazi occupation,it seems appropriate to stress the need for a broader approach which takes fullaccount of the circumstances in which decisions were made by both thepersecuted Jews and those who either helped, or failed to help them. Highlight-ing the heroic few and castigating the many bystanders only makes sense if itincludes some understanding of the national and perhaps more importantly, thelocal conditions pertaining at the time.

Looking at rescue in general, it seems important to stress the role of motivatedindividuals with the power and contacts to mobilise networks and communities.Their links with particular localities and/or religious groups helps to explain thewidely different responses to the plight of the Jews in ostensibly similarcommunities. Yet this raises a further issue. While there were many self-motivated rescuers, probably the majority had to be asked to help—usually bythird parties. If the experiences of Arnold Douwes are typical, then many who

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did provide refuge were barely willing and had to be persuaded by whatevermeans possible. Traditions of obedience to authority and fear of punitive Germanmeasures against transgressors of increasingly draconian laws may have been akey factor in limiting the numbers who would help, but it might also be arguedthat people in areas with no leadership geared to helping those in hiding wereunlikely ever to be asked to provide such help. Also important in this context isthe timing of Nazi measures against the Jews and the population in general. Aculture of disobedience, opposition and resistance took time to develop, even incountries with less deferential views of authority. Only when the population ingeneral fell victim to Nazi ideological and economic impositions was there anywidespread or organised resistance, but tragically often too late to help the manyJews who had already been arrested and deported.

Finally, while it is important to remember and to revere those who helped saveJews from Nazi persecution, often at great risk to themselves, it is also importantto recognise that rescue was not just about righteous gentiles. There was alsosometimes a dark side even to successful rescues. Motivations were not alwayspure and concentration solely on the obviously philanthropic or altruisticelements will only provide part of the story.

Notes and References1. See, for example, Yehuda Bauer, Jews for Sale? Nazi–Jewish Negotiations, 1933–1945 (New Haven and

London: Yale University Press, 1994); Raoul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (New York:Holmes and Meier, 1985), pp 309–331.

2. Wolfgang Benz, Dimension des Volkermords: Die Zahl der judischer Opfer des Nationalsozialismus(Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1991).

3. S. Oliner and P. M. Oliner, The Altruistic Personality: Rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe (New York: FreePress, 1988).

4. Nechama Tec, When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland(New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986); Eva Fogelmann, The Courage to Care: Rescuersof Jews during the Holocaust (London: Victor Gollancz, 1995).

5. See, for example, Andre Stein, Quiet Heroes: True Stories of the Rescue of Jews by Christians inNazi-Occupied Holland (Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1988); G. Block and M. Drucker, Rescuers:Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1992); Eric Silver, The Bookof the Just: The Unsung Heroes who Rescued Jews from Hitler (New York: Grove Press, 1992).

6. Yisrael Gutman and Efraim Zuroff, eds, Rescue Attempts during the Holocaust: Proceedings of the SecondYad Vashem International Historical Conference (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1977).

7. See especially Mordechai Paldiel, The Path of the Righteous, Gentile Rescuers of the Jews during theHolocaust (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1993); and by the same author, “The rescue of Jewish children in Belgiumduring World War II,” in Dan Michman, ed., Belgium and the Holocaust: Jews, Belgians, Germans(Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1998), pp 307–325.

8. H. C. Touw, Het Verzet der Hervormde Kerk (The Hague: Boekcentrum NV, 1947); J. J. Buskes, WaarStond de Kerk? (Amsterdam: De Volkspaedagogisch Bibliohteek, 1947); Th. Delleman, ed., Opdat wij nietvergeten (Kampen: n.p., 1949); S. Stokman, Het verzet van de Nederlandse Bisschoppen tegen Nationaal-Socilaisme en Duitse tyrannie (Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 1945). See also J. M. Snoek, The Grey Book (VanGoraum Assen, 1969) and J. M. Snoek, De Nederlandse Kerken en de Joden (Kampen: Kok, 1990).

9. The story of Anne Frank alone has produced a whole literature on its own. See, for example, Miep Gies,Anne Frank Remembered: The Story of the Woman who Helped Hide the Frank Family (New Your: Simonand Schuster, 1987); Etty Hillesum, Het verstoorde leven: Dagboek van Etty Hillesum, 1941–1943, 12thedn (Bussum: De Haan, 1983); Carol Ann Lee, Roses from the Earth: The Biography of Anne Frank(London: Viking, 1998); and Melissa Muller, Anne Frank: The Biography (London: Bloomsbury, 1999).

10. E. Lester, Wallenberg: The Man in the Iron Web (Eaglewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice–Hall, 1984); F. E.

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Werbell and T. Clarke, Lost Hero: The Mystery of Raoul Wallenberg (New York: McGraw–Hill, 1982);and Thomas Keneally, Schindler’s ark (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993).

11. There are exceptions to this rule. See, for example, Philip Mechanicus, Waiting for Death (London: Calderand Boyars, 1968), a diary kept by a Dutch journalist until his deportation from Westerbork transit campand published posthumously.

12. Y. Bauer, A History of the Holocaust (Danbury, CT: Watts, 1982), pp 291–295.13. See, for example, Martin Broszat, “Resistenz und Widerstand,” in Broszat et al, Bayern in der NS-Zeit,

Vol IV, pp 691–709; and Ian Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich: Bavaria1933–1945 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983).

14. Jacques Semelin, Sans armes face a Hitler: La resistance civile en Europe, 1939–1945 (Paris: Payot etRivages, 1998), p 47.

15. Werner Warmbrunn, The German Occupation of Belgium 1940–1944 (New York: Lang, 1993), pp149–171.

16. See especially Guus Meershoek, Dienaren van het Gezag: De Amsterdamse Politie tijdens de Bezetting(Amsterdam: van Gennep, 1999).

17. See, for example, John P. Fox, “How far did Vichy France ‘sabotage’ the imperatives of Wannsee?” inDavid Cesarani, ed., The Final Solution: Origins and Implementation (London: Routledge, 1994), pp194–214; Simon Kitson, “The police in the liberation of Paris,” in H. R. Kedward and Nancy Wood, eds,The Liberation of France: Image and Event (Oxford: Berg, 1995).

18. See, for example, Jacques Adler, The Jews of Paris and the Final Solution: Communal Response andInternal Conflicts 1940–1944 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p 238; PimGriffioen and Ron Zeller, “Jodenvervolging in Nederland en Belgie tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog: eenvergelijkende analyse,” Oorlogsdocumentatie “40-”45: Achtste Jaarboek van het Rijksinstituut voorOorlogsdocumentatie (Zutphen: Walberg Pers, 1997), p 38.

19. Although the Amsterdam Jewish Council was always considered to have been created on the orders of theGermans, there has recently been a debate within the Netherlands which suggests that its creation owedmore to the aspirations of individuals within the Jewish elite and that the German authorities never plannedit to have such a scope or extent. Scheren and Roest, Oorlog in de Stad (Amsterdam: van Gennep, 1999).

20. Bob Moore, Victims and Survivors: The Nazi Persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands (London: Arnold,1997), p 114.

21. In France, the secular nature of the state meant that official registrations made no mention of theindividual’s religion. Steinberg, “Jewish rescue activities,” p 608. Michael Marrus and Robert Paxton,Vichy France and the Jews (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), pp 148, 370. The exceptionsto this were the foreign Jews in both countries whose registration as aliens should have been held by thelocal police and/or by the aliens section of the Justice Ministry (Belgium) or the Interior Ministry (France).Frank Caestecker and Bob Moore, “Refugee policies in Western European states in the 1930s,”IMIS-Beitrage, Vol VII, 1998, pp 89, 94.

22. Ben Braber, “De Groep van Dien: Duits Joden in Nederland in Nederlandse Illegaliteit” (unpublishedDoctoraalscriptie, Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1986); Ben Braber, Passage naar Vrijheid: Joods Verzetin Nederland 1940–1945 (Amsterdam: Balans, 1987); Ben Braber, Zelfs als wij Zullen Verliezen: Jodenin Verzet en Illegaliteit (Amsterdam: Balans, 1990).

23. Adler, The Jews of Paris, pp 165–195.24. Adler, The Jews of Paris, pp 166–167. Lucien Steinberg, “Jewish rescue activities in Belgium and France,”

in Gutman and Zuroff, Rescue Attempts, pp 608–609.25. Steinberg, “Jewish rescue activities,” pp 603–608.26. Harry Paape, “ … Originally from Frankfurt-am-Main’,” in David Barnouw and Gerrold van der Stroom,

eds, The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition (London: Viking, 1989), pp 1–20.27. Rittner and Myers, The Courage to Care, p 29.28. Philip Hallie, Lest Innocent Blood be Shed (London: Michael Joseph, 1979), p 183, notes the devout

Calvinist Darbystes who lived in isolated communities in the vicinity of Le Chambon.29. This conclusion has also been undermined by Lawrence Baron, “The dynamics of decency: Dutch rescuers

of Jews during the Holocaust,” in Frank P. Piskor Faculty Lecture, St Lawrence University, May 1985,p 8.

30. Bert Jan Flim, “The possibilities for Dutch Jews to hide from the Nazis, 1942–1945,” in Dutch JewishHistory, Vol IV (Jerusalem: forthcoming).

31. This is a derogatory term for Germans in Dutch and equates approximately to the English “Jerries” or theFrench “Boches.” On the Boogaard family, see Louis de Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in deTweede Wereldoorlog VI (s-Gravenhage: Staatsuitgeverij, 1975), pp 348–351. Cor van Stam, WachtBinnen de Dijken: Verzet in en om de Haarlemmermeer (Haarlem: De Toorts, 1986), pp 67–95.

32. One could also include atheists and agnostics in this category.

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33. Paldiel, “The rescue of Jewish children,” p 317, suggests from a reading of Yad Vashem files that halfof all Jewish attempts to go underground in Belgium were personal or individual third-party arrangements.Flim, “The possibilities for Dutch Jews to hide from the Nazis, 1942–1945,” p 2, does not attempt toestimate the proportion of organised and unorganised hiding in the Netherlands, but does suggest thatmany who went into hiding on their own account ultimately ended up being cared for by one of the helporganisations.

34. See, for example, Andre Trocme in Le Chambon who used the responsables (elders) in his congregationin this way. Hallie, Lest Innocent Blood be Shed, pp 173–174.

35. Dagboek van Arnold Douwes, p 80, January 5, 1944, NIOD LO-BO4.36. Moore, Victims and Survivors, p 175. NIOD LO-LKP 251a LO-BO4, Dagboek Arnold Douwes, November

3, 1943, p 54.37. Hallie, Innocent Blood, p 196.38. While such “racial” distinctions would have been anathema to the communists, other organisations also

combined help for Jews and non-Jews.39. See, for example, Gesina van der Molen as a major figure in the Trouw group and H. T. Kuipers-Rietberg,

a founder of the national Landelijke Organisatie (Netherlands). Yvonne Nevejean, ONE Children’s Homesand Dr Christine Hendrickz-Duchaine (Belgium) and Madeleine Dreyfus, OSE, and Marinette Guy andJuliette Vidal, Aide aux Meres de Famille (France).

40. Deborah Dwork, Children with a Star: Jewish Youth in Nazi Europe (New Haven and London: YaleUniversity Press 1991).

41. Het Gooi (Pos): LO-Werk Oorlog 1940–1945, NIOD LO-LKP LO/BP2.42. Sabine Zeitoun, “The role of the Christian community in saving Jewish children in France during the

Second World War,” in Yehuda Bauer, ed., Remembering for the Future, Vol 3 (Oxford: Pergamon, 1989),pp 2785–2805. See especially pp 2788–2790.

43. In the Netherlands, nearly all these groups were specially created; Amsterdamse Studentengroep, UtrechtseKindercomite, Trouw-groep and Naamloze Vennootschap. See Moore, Victims and Survivors, pp 181–189.Bert-Jan Flim, Omdat hun Hart Sprak: Geschiedenis van de georganiseerde hulp aan Joodse kinderen inNederland 1942–45 (Kampen: Kok, 1996), Chapters 3–7. In France, help for children seems to haveemerged from (often illegal) offshoots of existing charitable or children’s organisations. See Zeitoun, “Therole of the Christian community,” pp 2785–2805.

44. Paldiel, “The rescue of Jewish children,” p 309.45. H. Wolf, De Gespijkerde God (Nijmegen: SUN, 1995), p 79. Moore, Victims and Survivors, p 166.46. Joel S. Fishman, “Jewish war orphans in the Netherlands–the guardianship issue 1945–1950,” Wiener

Library Bulletin, XXVII (New Series: 30–31), 1973–1974 pp 31–36. Joel S. Fishman, “The war orphancontroversy in the Netherlands: majority–minority relations,” in J. Michman and T. Levie, eds, DutchJewish History (Jerusalem: Tel Aviv University/Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1984); Joel S. Fishman,“The Anneke Beekman affair and the Dutch news media,” Jewish Social Studies, XLI, 1978, pp 3–24;Zeitoun, “The role of the Christian community,” p 2797; A. Kaspi, “L’affaire Finaly,” L’Histoire, LXXVI,1985, pp 40–53.

47. Moore, Victims and Survivors, p 166, cites RIOD LO-LKP LO/BP2 interview with ds. Feenstra whoregarded saving Jews as a task given by God which also provided the opportunity to proselytise them.

48. Sarah Kofman, Rue Ordener, Rue Labat (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), pp59–61.

49. Note the allusions to lesbian contact between child and rescuer in Kofman, Rue Ordener, pp 40–1, 55–59.

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