<nettime> RE: Geert Wilders / Borders, borders, more borders

[ericbj@club-internet.fr]

> ... the popularity in the USA of a book like The Diary
> of Anna Frank gave Holland the false reputation of
> having been "right on" in its efforts to protect its
> jewish population from the nazis, whereas in reality
> collaboration was rife: 90% of Dutch jews were deported,
> more than in any other european jewish population
> outside of poland.

All occupied countries had collaborators and Holland was no worse in this 
respect than elsewhere.  The high incidence of deportation of Jews to the 
extermination camps was due to the collaboration of one man: the Dutch 
government's senior statistician, in charge of the census records.  In 
contrast, deportations from France -- where there was a serious problem of 
collaboration thanks to Vichy ("the legal government" as a French lawyer 
once remarked to me) -- was, if memory serves me right, of the order of 
only 30%.  The reason?  The French general who offered to handle the 
census returns for the German occupiers did so in order to ensure the 
latter received as little useful information as possible and the French 
authorities in North Africa received a maximum, ensuring rapid 
mobilisation after the Liberation.  Pressed by the Germans for lists of 
Jews he procrastinated on the grounds that his lists were not yet ready. 
In fact he was busily destroying the census returns which showed who was 
Jewish.  He was to die in a concentration camp for this.

Sorry I cannot give you more details, as my library is in southern France 
and I am in northern Thailand.  For details, read "IBM and the Holocaust"

Eric









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