Amsterdam officials followed Nazi orders but to what extent is unclear, researcher says

Official archives have revealed that Amsterdam officials "strictly followed" German orders during the German occupation. However, a researcher of the NIOD (Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies) has said that the documents should be read with a critical eye, as the eventual resistance and the size of the resistance cannot easily be determined. A historical research into the subject was published on Wednesday.

According to NIOD researcher Jeroen Kemperman, the civil servants and officials in Amsterdam followed almost every request made by the German forces. Jewish Amsterdammers were registered by Dutch services, sent to work camps, and transported to deportation centers and trains. Any people who were considered to be possibly homosexual had their info sent on to the German forces.

The compliance, Kemperman said, can be explained. Officials were intimidated by the armed Germans, routinely obedient to the authorities in charge, bureaucratically blind to wider implications, and anxious to ensure the continuity of their organizations. "There was also the idea that cooperation could perhaps alleviate the situation of the affected citizens somewhat," the researcher said.

In addition, public resistance was very difficult due to sanctions like violence, imprisonment, or being fired. To the extent that there was resistance from the municipality, it was "in a secretive manner and on an individual basis, and mainly at the lower levels. It is not possible to determine the exact extent of this resistance," according to Kemperman.

"Under a repressive occupation regime, civil servants were extremely reluctant to give written evidence of unwillingness, passivity, recalcitrance or sabotage.” The extent to which civil servants may have sometimes said yes to an order but decided not to do it or only partly do it cannot be determined from the documents generated during the occupation.

"Presumably, Dutch civil servants were generally less obedient during the occupation than can be inferred from the official archives, but on the other hand, they were less defiant in their actions than they themselves claimed after the war,” the researcher noted.