The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

Unemployed workers were increasingly subjected to a system of ‘workfare’ (Werkverschaffing). For a miserable
wage, they had to participate in land clearance or strengthening dikes. In October 1940, there were 11,000
workers making the return journey by train from Amsterdam to the province of Utrecht. Some workers’
demonstrations and clashes with the authorities broke out from the month of November. Throughout January
small demonstrations of ‘assisted workers’ and unemployed broke out against the Labour Exchange and the
municipal administration of Amsterdam. Each time they were dispersed by the Dutch police.
At the same time the first deportations of workers to Germany began, through the intermediary of the Dutch
authorities, in particular the Amsterdam Labour Exchange: 7,000 in October 1940. In January 1941 – on the
orders of the German Kriegsmarine – 3,000 had to leave for Germany under the threat of the concentration
camp. These were skilled engineering and shipbuilding workers. A great agitation followed among the workers
in the shipyards in mid-February.
In this increasingly tense social atmosphere, the German authorities began to take more rigorous anti-Semitic
measures. The attacks of Dutch and German Nazis against the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, in the centre of the
town, were turned into pogroms from December. Faced with these attacks, on 11 th February 1941, a group of
Nazis was attacked by Jewish and non-Jewish workers who came from other workers’ districts. These scuffles
led to the death of a Dutch National Socialist.
On February 12 th , the German authorities surrounded the whole Jewish district. They demanded that Jewish
personalities form a “Joodenraad” (Jewish Council) responsible for the ‘maintenance of order’ and charged it
with ‘giving up’ its weapons. Since the weapons were non-existent there was no result. It was only a pretext to
transform the district into a ghetto and carry out searches.
On February 17 th , 2,000 shipyard workers took the initiative by going on strike in solidarity with 128 comrades
forced to work in Germany. The German authorities gave way and the workers obtained a moral victory which
later played a big role in the generalisation of the strike. 1155
Following one incident, where a Jewish cafe owner resisted the assaults of the German police (Grüne Polizei),
the authorities arrested more than 400 young Jews on the weekend of 22 nd and 23 rd February. They were
deported to Buchenwald some time later. The deployment of a force of SS machine-gunners provoked the
emotion and anger of the workers of Amsterdam.
On February 25 th , the strike broke out spontaneously in the firms of Amsterdam. Some demonstrations look
place to the cry of: ‘Down with pogroms against the Jews!’ On the 26 th , the mass strike spread to The Hague,
Rotterdam, Groningen, Utrecht, Hilversum, Haarlem, and many other towns. The strike even spread to
Belgium. 1156
The repressive measures taken by the German authorities were terrible: SS battalions were stationed in the
strike-hit towns and ordered to fire on demonstrations; employees were ordered not to pay workers for the twoday
strike. The strike movement was broken. Executions of strikers began. The arrests of Jews continued and
intensified during the summer of 1942. At the end of the war, out of a community of 120,000 persons only
20,000 survived, having judiciously chosen to go underground with forged papers.
It is certain that the Dutch CP – outlawed on July 20, 1940, two months after the beginning of the occupation –
played a big role in starting the strike. But it was surprised by the rapidity of its extension. Extension outside of
Amsterdam occurred spontaneously. When the CPN called for a general strike in the whole country for 6 th
March, its appeal was ignored by the workers. The strike had taken an mass character, comparable in breadth
with the great mass strike of 1903. The aspect of the mass, spontaneous strike – as opposed to a general strike –
was not lost on the MLL Front, whose positions were more and more ‘Luxemburgist’.
1155 See the book by Sijes, quoted above.
1156 The extension of the strike to Belgium (in Flanders) is attested too by Sijes, but he gives no details.
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