The Cowardly Jew they Forgot to Gas: The Phenomenon of Dutch Post-liberation Antisemitism and Some Continuities


Published: Jun 19, 2019
Keywords:
Mdoern Jewish History History of antisemitism of Zionism Biogrpahy
Evelien Gans
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9834-7843
Abstract

This article elaborates on two antisemitic stereotypes or phenomena that show how the Shoah was turned against the Jews as early as 1945. The curse “they forgot to gas you” popped up immediately after the war, during all kind of public rows on the street with Jewish employers and neighbours. It was, so to say, the first antisemitic post-Holocaust stereotype that sent the Jewish survivor – verbally – to the gas chamber. Several Jews took cases to court. The insult “they forgot to gas you” was taken more seriously by Jews themselves and punished more severely by the court than the simple insult “filthy Jew”. The identification of “the Jew” and the gas chamber never disappeared but lives on – also within the football world, satire and anti-Israel demonstrations. It is a manifestation of what Theodor Adorno coined Schuld- und Erinnerungsabwehrantisemitismus (antisemitism based on a rejection of guilt and unwelcome memories). The same goes for the accusation that, during the German occupation, the Jews had offered no, or not enough, resistance against the Nazis. Others had to fight for them. Jews were neither fighters nor heroes; they depended on the courage of gentiles. Also this stereotype of the passive, obedient Jew would persist, for example, in a final school examination paper in 1983 and in some recent Dutch historiography on the Second World War and the Shoah. In this way the Shoah functioned as a point of fixation for postliberation – and more generally – postwar antisemitism.

Article Details
  • Section
  • ARTICLES
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
Author Biography
Evelien Gans, University of Amsterdam (UvA) and Netherlands Institute for War-, Holocaust- and Genocide Studies (NIOD)

Evelien Gans (1951-2018) was professor emerita of Modern Jewish History and History and Actuality of Antisemitism.

References
“Ministerie weigert discriminerende vragen over joden te schrappen.” Leeuwarder Courant, 16 November 1983.
Bergmann, Werner. “‘Störenfriede der Erinnerung’: Zum Schuldabwehr-Antisemitismus in Deutschland.” In Literarischer Antisemitismus nach Auschwitz, edited by Klaus-Michel Bogdal, Klaus Holz and Matthias N. Lorenz, 13–35. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2007.
Bloemgarten, Salvador. “Joodse vraagstuk.” NRC Handelsblad, 30 May 1983.
Blom, J.C.H. “De vervolging van de joden in internationaal vergelijkend perspectief.” De Gids 150, no. 6/7 (1987): 494–507.
Blom, J.C.H. “The Persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands: A Comparative Western European Perspective.” European Jewish Quarterly 19, no. 3 (1989): 333–51.
Blom, J.C.H. Crisis, bezetting en herstel: Tien studies over Nederland 1930–1950. The Hague: Nijgh & Van Ditmar Universitair, 1989.
Boas, Henriette. “Geschiedenis-examen wekt onjuiste indruk van joodse tragedie.” NRC Handelsblad, 8 June 1983.
Boom, Bart van der. “Wij weten niets van hun lot”: Gewone Nederlanders en de Holocaust. Amsterdam: Boom, 2012.
Buitenkant, A., and P. Kohnhorst. “Bij geschiedenisexamen zorgvuldiger zijn met het ‘Joodse vraagstuk’.” NRC Handelsblad, 26 May 1983.
Digan, Katie. “‘The Activist Jew’ Responds to Changing Dutch Perceptions of Israel.” In The Holocaust, Israel and “the Jew”: Histories of Antisemitism in Postwar Dutch Society, edited by Remco Ensel and Evelien Gans, 241–58. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016.
Ensel, Remco. “‘The Jew’ vs. ‘The Young Male Moroccan’.” In The Holocaust, Israel and “the Jew”: Histories of Antisemitism in Postwar Dutch Society, edited by Remco Ensel and Evelien Gans, 377–414. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016.
Ensel, Remco, and Evelien Gans. “Historikerstreit: The Stereotypical Jew in Recent Dutch Holocaust Studies.” In The Holocaust, Israel and “the Jew”: Histories of Antisemitism in Postwar Dutch Society, edited by Remco Ensel and Evelien Gans, 341–74. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016.
Ensel, Remco, and Evelien Gans. “We Know Something of their Fate: Bart van der Boom’s History of the Holocaust.” Academia.edu. December 2014, http://www.academia.edu/9835819/We_know_something_of_their_fate._Bart_van_der_Boom_s_history_of_the_Holocaust_in_the_Netherlands.
Ensel, Remco, and Evelien Gans. “The Dutch Bystander as Non-Jew and Implicated Subject.” In Probing the Limits of Categorization: The Bystander in Holocaust History, edited by Christina Morina and Krijn Thijs, 107–27. New York: Berghahn, 2018.
Fein, Helen. Accounting for Genocide: National Response and Jewish Victimization during the Holocaust. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.
Gans, Evelien. Gojse nijd & joods narcisme: Over de verhouding tussen joden en niet-joden in Nederland. Amsterdam: Arena, 1994.
Gans, Evelien. “‘Vandaag hebben ze niets, maar morgen bezitten ze weer een tientje’: antisemitische stereotypen in bevrijd Nederland.” In Polderschouw. Terugkeer en opvang na de Tweede Wereldoorlog: regionale verschillen, ed Conny Kristel, 313–53. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 2002.
Gans, Evelien. “Gojse broodnijd: de strijd tussen joden en niet-joden rond de naoorlogse Winkelsluitingswet 1945–1951.” In Met alle geweld: botsingen en tegenstellingen in burgerlijk Nederland, edited by Conny Kristel, 195–213. Amsterdam: Balans, 2003.
Gans, Evelien. “Eigentlich waren doch alle ein bisschen Täter und Opfer…: Nivellierungstendenzen und sekundärer Antisemitismus im Geschichtsbild des niederländischen Historikers Chris van der Heijden.” In Täter und Tabu: Grenzen der Toleranz in deutschen und niederlänischen Geschichtsdebatten, edited by Nicole Colin, Matthias N. Lorenz and Joachim Umlauf, 33–47. Essen: Klartext, 2011.
Gans, Evelien. “‘They have Forgotten to Gas You.’ Post-1945 Antisemitism in the Netherlands.” In Dutch Racism, edited by Philomena Essed and Isabel Hoving, 71–100. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2014.
Gans, Evelien. “Epilogue: Instrumentalising and Blaming ‘the Jew’, 2011–2016.” In The Holocaust, Israel and “the Jew”: Histories of Antisemitism in Postwar Dutch Society, edited by Remco Ensel and Evelien Gans, 499–544. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016.
Gans, Evelien. “Israel: Source of Divergence.” In The Holocaust, Israel and “the Jew”: Histories of Antisemitism in Postwar Dutch Society, edited by Remco Ensel and Evelien Gans, 215–40. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016.
Gans, Evelien. “The Jew as a Dubious Victim.” In The Holocaust, Israel and “the Jew”: Histories of Antisemitism in Postwar Dutch Society, edited by Remco Ensel and Evelien Gans, 61–82. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016.
Gans, Evelien. “‘The Jew’ in Football: To Kick Around or to Embrace.” In The Holocaust, Israel and “the Jew”: Histories of Antisemitism in Postwar Dutch Society, edited by Remco Ensel and Evelien Gans, 287–314. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016.
Gans, Evelien. “Jewish Responses to Post-liberation Antisemitism.” In The Holocaust, Israel and “the Jew”: Histories of Antisemitism in Postwar Dutch Society, edited by Remco Ensel and Evelien Gans, 127–49. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016.
Gans, Evelien. “Why Jews are more Guilty than Others⸮ An Introductory Essay.” In The Holocaust, Israel and “the Jew”: Histories of Antisemitism in Postwar Dutch Society, edited by Remco Ensel and Evelien Gans, 17–58. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016.
Gans, Evelien. “Disowning Responsibility: The Stereotype of the Passive Jew as a Legitimizing Factor in Dutch Remembrance of the Shoah.” In The Jew as Legitimation: Jewish–Gentile Relations Beyond Antisemitism and Philosemitism, edited by David Wertheim, 173–93. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
Griffioen, Pim, and Ron Zeller. Jodenvervolging, in Nederland, Frankrijk en België: Overeenkomsten, verschillen, oorzaken. Amsterdam: Boom, 2011.
Griffioen, Pim, and Ron Zeller. “Comparing the Persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands, France and Belgium, 1940–1945: Similarities, Differences, Causes.” In The Persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands, 1940–1945: New Perspectives, edited by Peter Romijn et al., 55–91. Amsterdam: Vossiuspers, 2012.
Heijden, Chris van der. Grijs verleden: Nederland en de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Amsterdam: Contact, 2001.
Heijden, Chris van der. “Dat nooit meer: De nasleep van de Tweede Wereldoorlog in Nederland.” PhD diss., University of Amsterdam. Amsterdam: Contact, 2011.
Herzberg, Abel J. Kroniek der Jodenvervolging 1940–1945. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1978.
Hondius, Dienke. Terugkeer: Antisemitisme in Nederland rond de bevrijding, rev. ed. The Hague: Sdu, 1998.
Hondius, Dienke. Gemengde huwelijken, gemengde gevoelens: Hoe Nederland omgaat met etnisch en religieus verschil. The Hague: Sdu Uitgevers, 2001.
Lagrou, Pieter. “Victims of Genocide and National Memory: Belgium, France and the Netherlands, 1945–1965.” Past & Present 154 (1997): 181–222.
Lowe, Keith. Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II. London: Viking, 2012.
Moore, Bob. Victims and Survivors: The Nazi Persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands, 1940–1945. London: Arnold, 1997.
Moore, Bob. Slachtoffers en overlevenden: De nazi-vervolging van de joden in Nederland. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker, 1998.
Quispel, Chris. Anti-Joodse beeldvorming en Jodenhaat. Hilversum: Verloren, 2016.