[H.
Reactions
abroad to the Reichskristallnacht and to the split of
CSSR]
[6.22. Holland's police deports Jews without
visas to the Reich]
A similar influx of refugees came into Holland. At the end
of 1938 Mrs. van Tijn's Committee for Jewish Refugees
[CJR] counted 7,000 refugees in Holland, including about
1,800 who had arrived at the end of the year after the
November pogrom. Officially, no more people were supposed
to come in after November 11, but a 1 million guilder
guarantee by CJR prolonged the time limit to December 23.
(End note 117: For Holland, see:
-- Executive Committee, 4/19/39 [19 April 1939];
-- R46, January 1939 report;
-- 34-Germany, refugees 1935-41, 1938 report.
These are also the sources for the next paragraph in the
text. Mrs. van Tijn reports (R52, 3/23/39 [23 March 1939]
meeting of refugee committees) that the date of the
closure of the Dutch border was December 17. I have not
been able to clear up the discrepancy).
After that date the Dutch police became very strict and
did not hesitate to deport entrants who were without
visas. Nevertheless, the number of Jewish refugees in
Holland in early 1939 grew by about 7,000 because quite a
number of German Jews had obtained legal entry permits by
showing that they had relatives who were already living in
the country.
[Three camps for Jewish
refugees - Westerbork - JDC help - vocational training]
Refugees continued to pour in through 1939. In order to
care both for illegals who had been allowed to stay and
for legal entrants who had no means of support, the
government set up three camps for 600 persons. One of
these camps was at Westerbork, the future deportation
center, from which most of Dutch Jews went to their deaths
in 1942-44.
JDC supported Mrs. van Tijn's committee as it had done in
previous years, especially its Wieringen project, where
270 youngsters were receiving agricultural training in
1939, and the other Hechalutz training centers, where
another 330 were preparing for Palestine. Most of these
young people never saw the country of their destination -
many were sent to their deaths in Nazi camps; other were
to form the nucleus for one of the Jewish resistance
groups in France during the war.
