A look ahead: emigration to America

Work camp Gleiwitz, Camp for forced labor
1960

Under no circumstance did I want to be a beggar.

Out of the approximately 140,000 Jews who lived in the Netherlands around 1940, 30,000 survived the Second World War. For them the world looked quite different than for non-Jewish Dutchmen. As if the loss of (sometimes all) family members and friends and the loss of a social environment wasn’t enough to bear, many also lost their house, their work, and their possessions. In addition, the long years of fear, humiliation, illness, cold, hunger, and exhaustion were for most a breaking point in their lives. Many Jews decided to emigrate.