Beschrijving
When, after the Shoah, Jews removed the yellow badge, this act marked the beginning of a prolonged struggle to recover former rights and possessions and to rebuild their destroyed communities in an environment frequently infected with Nazi antisemitism. In addition, many former resistance workers – some of whom had rescued Jews – opposed Jewish efforts to re-establish their separate identity as a community, though for idealistic reasons and with well meant intensions. This became painfully clear in the struggle over Jewish war orphans who had survived with the help of non-Jewish (mostly Christian) families and were not automatically placed under Jewish guardianship when the war was over.
This monograph covers in depth some of these issues in the Netherlands, during and immediately after the Liberation. It describes the relations between the devastated Jewish community and the Dutch government, officialdom, former resistance workers and the clergy. The essay covers also the desperate situation of the Dutch Jews and their efforts to redefine their individual and collective identity in the context of the postwar Netherlands.
