Most of the Jews in German-occupied Holland sleep away from home in fear of Gestapo raids, but they are befriended by the Butch population, a Jewish woman recently arrived from the Netherlands told the Netherland Indies News Agency today.
“Worse for the Jews than having to give up all their money and being forbidden to mix openly with non-Jews is the fact that they are never sure of their lives,” the woman stated. “Jews are picked up on the streets or dragged from their homes and just disappear.”
The woman said she would hide her husband’s clothes every evening and when the bell would ring, she would answer it, while her husband would go upstairs into a specially-constructed hiding place in the attic. Jews are not forced to wear yellow armlets or Stars of David, but their identity cards are marked with a large letter “J.”, she added.
“The Gentiles are most helpful and extremely kind towards the Jews, who always find a welcome in the homes of non-Jews in order to listen to the radio from London,” the Jewish woman said. “Jews themselves are not allowed to own radios. They have long ago given up walking on the streets on Friday evening because members of the Nazi N.S.B. have made it a practice to organize marches and riots on the Jewish sabbath, picking out Jews among the public and arresting them. The famous Jewish bank, Lipman-Rosenthal, is now in so-called Aryan hands, its main task being to collect the money which Jews are forced to hand over.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
