We commemorate the February strike of 1941:one of the greatest acts of resistance of the Second World War. But what was the actual result? The strikers did not stop the occupation, the persecution of the Jews even increased. However, the strike also strengthened solidarity among Amsterdammers – Jews and non-Jews.
Every year on February 25 it is still busy at the Dokwerker on the Jonas Daniël Meijerplein in Amsterdam. Flowers and wreaths are laid and verses are read, there is criticism of contemporary discrimination. The monument, a diligent dock worker with clenched fists, represents the resistance of the many workers from Amsterdam, the Zaanstreek and elsewhere who, on 25 February 1941, reinforced their protest against the occupation of the Netherlands with a two-day strike. The reason was the raids on 22 and 23 February 1941, in which 425 Jews were rounded up and deported to Schoorl transit camp. De Dokwerker symbolizes this first major popular uprising against the German occupier and his actions towards the Jewish population.
The strike was impressive, but was it effective? Were the strikers able to thwart the plans for the Jewish Amsterdammers, as they wished?
'Blut and Tränen'
After the raids, the then illegal Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN) took the lead and called for a workers' strike on 24 February in manifestos. This as a protest against the German enemy and the persecution of the Jews, which she presented as an attack on the entire working people. The railway workers were the first to lay down their jobs, then the public works, the city cleaning service, the energy companies, the factory, metal and dock workers, public transport, the housing service and further individual officials in other departments.
The Germans did not immediately react when they heard that a strike was underway. Only when the rumors turned serious did they deploy the Ordnungspolizei, following shots, arrests and crowds dispersed; there was a curfew at seven thirty in the evening. The strike turned into a major uprising on the second day, with demonstrators from all walks of life causing havoc and getting involved in brawls.
The reaction was much harsher now. The Germans had initially underestimated the seriousness of the situation and were not well prepared – such a thing had never happened in any other country occupied by them – but they now announced that they would break the strike with 'Blut und Tränen'. And it did, with brutal violence, intimidation, executions and arrests. Nine people were killed and several seriously injured.
The CPN had lost its grip on matters, the striking crowd was too large and too boisterous. The protest had turned into a veritable urban war. Nevertheless, the party hoped to avoid a confrontation with the Germans. However, the occupier clearly concluded that in addition to Jews, the Communists, led by the CPN, had now definitely become its enemies. Immediately after the strike, the Germans started hunting for CPN members and charted the left-wing milieu. The party's top figures were arrested, as were lower executives and ex-members.
Of the 110 CPN's arrested on February 25 and 26, twenty-two were ultimately prosecuted. Their sentences ranged from concentration camp to penitentiary, prison and execution. On March 13, 1941, three CPN members who allegedly called for the strike were shot on the Waalsdorpervlakte near Scheveningen, along with 15 other resistance members who had already been arrested. (Strike leader Willem Kraan was arrested later that year. His suicide note surfaced in 2017, Red.)
Purification
In addition to the communists, the Germans also held the Amsterdam city council responsible for the events. This despite the notice that Mayor Willem de Vlugt had distributed on February 26 and the radio speech he had given in which he tried to stop the strike and summoned the workers to resume work.
The Amsterdam police could theoretically prevent gatherings and demonstrations and prevent the mob from mobilizing, but they hadn't managed to drive people to work; she lacked the right weapons, vehicles and an active, effective attitude. The Ordnungspolizei took a different approach:they raided workshops and Hanns Rauter, the highest SS and police leader, threatened with the death penalty for those who would not go to work the next day.
Although work seemed to have resumed throughout Amsterdam in the morning of February 27, 1941, Hans Böhmcker, representative of Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart, and his colleagues decided to purify and rejuvenate the Amsterdam municipal apparatus.
Seyss-Inquart granted himself the power to, among other things, dissolve the city council and the College of Mayor and Aldermen and replace them with NSB members and pro-German officials. De Vlugt also had to leave. The Amsterdam municipal apparatus was completely disrupted. In addition, the city was fined fifteen million guilders and a stronger German military mobilization was implemented in all cities in the Netherlands.
Put names
Employers were also held accountable for the behavior of their employees, even though they said they had done everything in their power to break the strike. In early March, a notice was sent to officials and workers warning of "severe penalties" such as wage cuts, fines, suspensions and dismissals. Higher officials were given heavier sentences. An investigation was carried out in which lists of names were compiled with initiators and agitators working at municipal services and companies; many strikers were interrogated and directors had to give the names of their own employees.
Directors and supervisors occasionally tried to reduce the sentences of their staff or to request revision by invoking social circumstances, the indispensability of their employees and the force majeure situation. But in order to avoid the takeover of the municipal apparatus or for fear of losing their company and their position, in short to 'survive', the directors and executives thought it better to obey the German orders and cooperate.
Reprisals against the Jews
Did the February Strike Affect the Persecution of the Jews? In any case, for Böhmcker there was a clear connection:he believed that the Jews had provoked the strike, despite De Vlugt's invocations that they were outside of it. On the first day of the strike, Rauter had indicated that three hundred Jews would be arrested and that there would be new roundups if the strike continued for one more day. Because it was soon terminated, Rauter said he would refrain from further hunting of Jews.
However, he did not keep his word for long:already on Thursday 27 February, 379 of the 425 Jews who were in Schoorl transit camp were deported to the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps. None of them returned. For these people, the relationship between strike and persecution is clear.
Historians such as Jacques Presser and Ben Sijes see an even closer connection, because in the wake of the strike, the Germans came up with their nazification policy, which banned Jews from public life, segregated them and eventually deported them. For example, Seyss-Inquart announced in his speech on 12 March 1941, although he said he understood the nature of the strike, that he would emphasize the distinction between Jewish and non-Jewish Dutchmen even more strongly. “We do not regard the Jews as part of the Dutch people. We will hit the Jews wherever we find them and whoever goes with them will suffer the consequences," he warned.
It is not that the strike actually changed the attitude of the occupier towards the Jews. Persecution and deportation would inevitably follow in the long run. The strike may have accelerated this process. Seyss-Inquart must have felt the February strike as a slap in the face, 'a blow inflicted on him by the Dutch for the sake of their Jewish fellow citizens', concluded Loe de Jong in his book The Kingdom of the Netherlands in the Second World War. Seyss-Inquart had after all hoped that National Socialism could find its way here without much difficulty. The February strike, a co-worker and friend of his later said, "greatly discouraged Seyss-Inquart, because he did not expect this at all (…) and it made him harder".
Mightiest experience
The February strike did not have the desired effect. The Germans hit back hard. The terrorist measures, the arrests, the executions and the other punishments intimidated the population to a great extent. The communists definitely came in the sights of the Germans as enemies. Employees lost their jobs, employers and executives feared for their position. The purification and rejuvenation of the Amsterdam municipal apparatus and the dismissal of mayor De Vlugt were a foretaste of the near future, in which the occupier would hold sway. Above all, the climate hardened towards the Jews.
The net result was negative, according to the balance sheet:the strike was a fiasco. Yet there was also a positive consequence:it stimulated a sense of solidarity and community among the citizens. There was a massive protest against anti-Semitism and the restriction of freedoms and rights. The populace had risen against the mighty enemy. Presser wrote in his book Ondergang (1965) about the 'persecution and extermination of Dutch Jewry 1940-1945', as the subtitle reads, that the February strike was 'for very many Jews one of the most powerful experiences of their lives during the occupation. ', because they felt supported by the knowledge that their fellow citizens made 'sacrifices in good and blood' for them. For the first time they felt that their fellow citizens cared for them and their fate and did not abandon them. De Dokwerker on its pedestal in the former Jewish quarter is still a reminder of that.
The impeachment was lifted, but it remained unsettled. On February 19, there was a fight between the Grüne Polizei and a Jewish thug, helped by local residents, in the Koco ice cream parlor in the Van Woustraat in Amsterdam South, a neighborhood where many Jews also lived. The reporting of both cases to Berlin was strongly anti-Semitic; the result was the raids on the Waterlooplein and surroundings on 22 and 23 February as the only correct answer to these 'Jewish provocations'.
This was followed a few days later by the February strike in Amsterdam, which spread to the Zaan region, Haarlem, Weesp, Hilversum and Utrecht. It has been the only massive and open protest against the persecution of the Jews in occupied Europe.