Anne Frank and the February Strike - February, 25 1941
Anne Frank 1929-1945
Anne Frank as Symbol
Anne Frank was jewish girl who had to hide – with her family- in the center of Amsterdam during the persecution imposed by the German occupation (1940-1945). Though people didn’t know what camps the Jews were transported to, they knew it was a big threat . So the family went into hiding in her fathers’ office in ‘the house behind’ (achterhuis) the front house at the canal. There she wrote her dairy : ‘het Achterhuis’. She was 13 years old and was deported three years later tot he deathcamps in Poland. Only the father survived and published the diary in many languages.
Couragious protest
Before the war was Amsterdam the most Jewish town of the Netherlands. One to seven inhabitants was Jewish, so 100.000 of the 700.000 people was Jewish. (Nowadays the Jews count about 30.000 people). The Jews were from Orthodox tot secular, and there was al lot of assimilation. The Jews lived here for ages and since teh Nazis went into power in 1933 a lot of Germand Jews fled to The Netherland, like the Frank family.
When the Germans in 1941 started their anti-jewish measurements, the population became outraged. There was a lot of solidarity among the – most leftist- workers., ten thousends of workers joined in. The whole town was mostly ‘red’. The strike started spontaniously with de workers of public transportation on February 25th 1941. It started with the communists who were a big force of the resistance. Others unions
joined in. Everyone, Jews and non-jews were member of the the same unions and co-workers, neighbours, friends. This strike was admired by other Dutch towns, and also by other European countries because is was the ONLY OPEN RESISTANCE AGAINST THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS.
After two days the Germans regained control with a lot of force. Nine people died, twenty people got injured. The consequences for occupied Netherlands were tremendous. Until then the Germans were rather mild because they considered the Dutch as ‘brothers’. From now on the occupation became a militant, military dictatorship. That was one of the reasons why it became very difficult to rescue Jews, political leftist opponents and men (often fathers !) who were force into slavelobour in Germany. The resistance movement started to organize itself in the whole of the country, very underground in secret circles. In 1944 there was another strike by the workers of the railway system. That also caused big punishment: the Germans boycotted foodtransportation so that in the winter of 1944 there was starvation.
Dokwerker (Harborworker) Jonas Daniël Meijerplein, Amsterdam, 1952.
Near the Jewish Historical Museum (former Synagogue)
Commemoration of the February Strike
Right after the war people started to commemorate the v victims of the war. Monuments are the core of yearly memorials . All over the country this is at the evening of the 4th of May. Also the National Memorial Day is this evening , where the King is present. But in Amsteram the main commomeration is February 25th, in the middle of the old jewish neighbourhood around the monument ‘de Dokwerker’. Every year it becomes more and more popular. Grandparents take their (grand)children with them , schools bring their pupils, so the history of the town is now transgenerational. The commemoratons becaomes also more urgent because of the new population is more divers than before: people from Carabean, Moroccan and Turkish descendent feel second rate though they have the same rights as other Dutch inhabitants. Islam is an issue, though Jews were not persecuted by their religion ut by their ‘race’. The American word of ‘racisme’ therefore is not suitablem for excisting discrimination. HJowever Commemoration of the February strike is a warning against discrmination and in favor of equal treatment.