A Spatial Analysis of Emotions: The Jewish Experience in Hiding in Nazi-occupied Netherlands, 1940-1945

• In Event: Jewish Resistance and Gender during the Holocaust

Abstract

This paper addresses an understudied aspect of Dutch Holocaust history, that is, the multifaceted experiences of Jews hiding in Nazi-occupied Netherlands. While existing scholarship, notably by Jacob Presser, Hans Blom, Bob Moore, Pim Griffioen, and Ron Zeller, has emphasized the high victimization percentage of Dutch Jewry, it has neglected the experiences of those Jews who sought to escape the Nazi deportations and find refuge among their non-Jewish countrymen. By examining the local conditions and personal circumstances of these individuals, as well as highlighting the social dynamics between Jews and non-Jews in Dutch society, I argue that the Jewish experience was diverse and distinct and determined by factors on the individual, community, and national level, including socioeconomic status, religiosity, level of integration, social networks, family status, geography, gender, age, and nationality.

Looking at diaries, letters, memoirs, family records, and oral testimonies in the Dutch, English, Hebrew, and German languages and employing an integrated analytical framework of both a geographical lens and a history of emotions—which I define as a SPATIAL ANALYSIS OF EMOTIONS—this paper aims to reconstruct the Jewish experience in hiding and show how Jews living under the German occupation were dynamic historical actors whose decisions and responses were influenced by their surroundings, allowing them to navigate between the various challenges, take advantage of the presented opportunities, and cope with countless different feelings and conditions. After all, the Shoah produced not only intentional spaces, such as the ghettos and camps, but also unintended spaces like attics, basements, and cellars, which were a complex social construction and setting of human interaction and emotion. A change in space led to a change in the meaning, emotional state, and social power Jews held and maintained.

Through a micro-historical analysis of everyday life in hiding, this paper enriches our understanding of the motivations, behaviors, and experiences of those Jews who were subjected to persecution and mass violence and whose decision-making process relied on their own conceptualization of the historical circumstances. It reveals not only how Jews perceived their situation and surroundings but also the Jews’ emotional and physical state during the war.

Author

• Alex Scheepens, University of Wisconsin-Madison