Dutch Resistance Museum

Verzetsmuseum Amsterdam

Since opening in 1985, the Dutch Resistance Museum in Amsterdam has presented the history of the occupation and resistance in the Netherlands during World War II.

History

Despite having declared neutrality, the Netherlands were invaded by the German Reich on May 10, 1940. Subsequently, the Queen and the government fled to London. On May 15, the Dutch army surrendered. The country became the »Reich Commissariat of the Netherlands« under Reich Commissar SS-Obergruppenführer Arthur Seyβ-Inquart. Eventually, the Netherlands were to be incorporated into the German Reich. Due to this, the occupation authorities initially proceeded carefully, bargaining on winning the sympathy of the local population, which would, so they hoped, eventually »self-Nazify«. The occupiers supported the »Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging« (English: National Socialist Movement), which was the only political party permitted. However, the support for National Socialism remained slight. Many were appalled when the order police arrested over 400 Jews during raids in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam in February 1941. Mass protests ensued – the so-called February Strike.
The situation was further aggravated: while the occupation authorities introduced ever harsher measures to suppress the local population, resistance grew in strength. The German occupying forces were now most interested in exploiting the country economically and purging it of Jews to make it »judenfrei« (free of Jews). Mass deportations of the Dutch labour force to Germany additionally exacerbated the population. Although the discontent was widespread, only a small minority was active in the resistance. The resistance movement maintained an underground press, carried out strikes and acts of sabotage, and instigated assassination attempts on both representatives and collaborators of the occupation regime. The occupiers retaliated with raids, shootings of hostages, deportations and executions.

Den Haag, June 1943, Funeral service for general commissar Fritz Schmidt, one of the leading figures of the occupation regime, Image bank WW2 – NIOD

Neerkant, October 1944, A resistance fighter escorting a soldier of the U.S. 38th Infantry Division behind German lines, Image bank WW2 – NIOD

Victims

About 250,000 Dutch citizens died during the occupation. Over 100,000 of them were Jews who were deported to the east and murdered there. Many civilians died as a result of the wartime living conditions. About 20,000 civilians died due to the shortage of food during the so-called winter of starvation in 1944/45.

When the Germans invaded the Kingdom of the Netherlands in May 1940 there were around 120,000 Jews living in the country, 75,000 of whom were in Amsterdam. An SS-led civil administration quickly began to implement anti-Jewish measures and organised acts of violence. A »Central Office for Jewish Emigration« was established by the SS in Amsterdam by the end of March 1941. On June 22 the following year Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962), head of the department for Jewish affairs in the SS Reich Security Main Office, informed the Foreign Office in Berlin that an agreement had been concluded with the German Reich Railways (Reichsbahn), one of the provisions of which was the deportation of 40,000 Jews from the Netherlands. These Jews were firstly detained in the Westerbork transit camp, where lists of names for deportation were produced. The first trains left here for Eastern Europe in the middle of July 1942. There were repeated raids to get hold of the Jews earmarked for deportation. By September 1944 around one hundred deportation transports had left Westerbork for the Auschwitz and Sobibor extermination camps, the Theresienstadt ghetto or the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The SS deported over 100,000 people; mainly Jews but also Roma. Jews with Dutch nationality were also deported to their deaths from France and Belgium. The total number of Dutch Jews murdered between May 1940 and the end of 1944 lies at around 102,000, or 75 percent of the pre-war Jewish population of the country. Over 110,000 Jewish civilians also died during the war and occupation. There are countless monuments, museums, memorial sites, plaques and small sites of memory related to the Second World War in the Netherlands, along with research institutes and archives. The 22 metre high »Nationaal Monument op de Dam« (National Monument on Dam Square) was inaugurated in Amsterdam as early as 1947. Dedicated to all Dutch »victims of the Second World War«, the monument’s current design dates from 1956. The Anne Frank House was opened in 1960. There are national sites of memory at the former National Socialist concentration or transit camps. For example, a memorial site was established in Westerbork in 1983 comprising the historic grounds, a national monument and a modern museum. In 1987, the »Joods Historisch Museum« (Jewish Historical Museum) was inaugurated in the Great Synagogue in Amsterdam. This museum also charts the persecution and murder of the Jews. In 2021, the Durch Holocaust Memorial of Names was inaugurated in Amsterdam that lists the names of 102.000 murdered Jews and Sinti and Roma on its walls. After the war, the Dutch culture of memory was characterised above all by its emphasis on the resistance against the German occupation. From the 1980s, increasing attention was paid to the question of how the majority of the population adapted themselves to the occupation, as opposed to those who consciously collaborated. A further feature of Dutch memory is its focus on the present. This approach is especially clear in memorials to the persecuted Sinti and Roma as well as in one of the best known monuments in the world to the homosexual victims of National Socialism, located in Amsterdam.

Remembrance

In 1980, an exhibition on the Dutch resistance stirred a public debate, and first suggestions were made to establish a museum exclusively dedicated to the Dutch resistance movement. Former resistance fighters and involved citizens began working on collecting objects which would help illustrate the daily life and resistance under German occupation. The Dutch authorities chose a former synagogue in south Amsterdam as the location for the museum, in agreement with the Jewish community. On November 19, 1985, Prince Bernard opened the museum to the public. In 1999, however, the museum moved to a larger building in the city centre, as the exhibition space in the previous building had been too small and its location deemed too remote to attract tourists. It has since been located in the Plancius building, which was built by the Jewish community in 1876.
In 2013, the museum was expanded to include the »Resistance Museum Junior« section, which aims to appeal to children and young people. The permanent exhibition was susequently redesigned and finally opened in December 2022. It attempts to draw a differentiated picture of everyday life and individual scope under German occupation, primarily by means of biographies.

Amsterdam, 2018, Entrance to the museum, Stiftung Denkmal

Amsterdam, 2022, In the new permanent exhibition, Verzetsmuseum Amsterdam

Possibilities

Museum with a permanent exhibition and temporary exhibitions, library, archive and collections, guided tours by appointment (available in Dutch, German, and English)

Open

Monday to Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday, Sunday and on holidays 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Contact

http://www.verzetsmuseum.org

info@verzetsmuseum.org

+31 (0)20 620 25 35

Plantage Kerklaan 61
1018 CX Amsterdam

Amsterdam, 2023, View of the new permanent exhibition, Stiftung Denkmal

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