Amsterdam, February 1941 — after the round-up

In the Netherlands, occupied since May 1940, the vise is tightening on the Jews: exclusions, registration, provocations by pro-Nazi gangs in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, the Jodenbuurt. Clashes break out; after the death of a member of the Nazi gangs in a brawl, the occupier strikes back with calculated violence. On 22 and 23 February 1941 the German police round up 425 Jewish men and youths in the quarter and deport them to the camps of Mauthausen and Buchenwald — from which almost none will return.

The news shakes the city. The Dutch Communist Party, banned since July 1940 but still organized underground in Amsterdam, decides to react. Its militants must choose a form of action in a country under German boot, where any opposition is severely repressed.

Three paths open before them: call for an open general strike of protest, a gesture without precedent and heavy with risk; stick to a discreet resistance (leaflets, sabotage) so as not to expose their networks; or abstain, judging the occupier too powerful for such a challenge to serve any purpose but to provoke reprisals.