Amsterdam’s Past and Present

I have been thinking about pogroms—both their far too many historical examples and their modern incarnations. I find myself hesitant to use the term pogrom to describe the antisemitic violence unleashed against Jewish and Israeli fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv. I wonder if the word’s blood-soaked history turns our focus away from present scenes toward past images. I worry will we see Cossacks where they do not exist. Will we think more about history, and its emotional overtones, rather than what happened in Amsterdam?

Then again, such worries are immaterial. An antisemite is an antisemite. It does not matter what uniform they wear or in which language they curse. And my initial hesitancy to use such loaded terms may be more about a reluctance to see the new life and breath yesterday’s antisemitism has gained in our own day. Such intellectual protestations are entirely irrelevant. Pogrom is in fact an apt description of what transpired on Amsterdam’s streets last week, and what has continued into this week. Let us not add to the world’s denial of this growing violent reality. Yesterday has become today!

The mobs were organized. And their attacks were planned. The term pogrom comes from the Russian meaning to wreak havoc or demolish violently. It has come to mean any violent attacks against a specific ethnic or religious group, most especially Jews. Sometimes the pogrom is government sponsored. At the very least authorities are passive or slow to respond. Groups waited for Maccabi Tel Aviv fans on Amsterdam’s streets. And the police offered little response when these Jewish fans were attacked.

There are often all manners of excuses and justifications offered for such violent antisemitic attacks. After the infamous Kishinev pogrom, Russian authorities blamed Jewish creditors, saying it was not about Russians and Jews, but instead peasants and money lenders. Likewise, Israeli fans’ racist chants while inexcusable must not be viewed as an understandable provocation for this violence. Antisemitism is antisemitism. A pogrom is a pogrom.

Bret Stephens comments, “Notice what these attackers aren’t saying. They aren’t expressing themselves in the faddish language of anti-Zionism. They aren’t denouncing Israeli policy or speaking up for Palestinian rights. They aren’t trying to make careful distinctions between Jews and Israelis. They are, like generations of pogromists before them, simply out to get the Jews.”

The confluence of these attacks with Kristallnacht’s eighty sixth anniversary makes history feel even more present. It's not about yesterday. Such antisemitic violence is no longer the stuff of history. It is about today. The fact that this pogrom occurred in Amsterdam, the city that gives prominence to the Anne Frank House, makes it even more painful. This place, and the city that hosts it, are supposed to be about memory, and the promise of a better future, not bloody present circumstances. European leaders are again complicit.

The American Jewish Committee reminds us, “European leaders who demonize or criminalize Israel cannot credibly claim to fight antisemitism while fanning its flames. While saying that antisemitism often hides behind anti-Zionism, they use language that contributes to Israel’s vilification and, by extension, emboldens those who target Jews across Europe. This hypocrisy must end.”

The Anne Frank House, and its nearly one million yearly visitors, allows one to imagine that the very city that offered hospitality and welcome to Jews fleeing fifteenth century Spain saved many of Holland’s Jews during the Holocaust. In fact, seventy five percent of Dutch Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. Holland failed the Jewish people. Anne Frank’s family was hidden, and her father saved, by one person. It was Miep Gies who offered them safety. She hid eight people. Her Amsterdam neighbors turned them in. And only Otto Frank survived.

We forget how many cooperated with the Nazis. We tend to see the Anne Frank House as representative of what is best about Amsterdam. Museums sometimes tell us what we want to hear. We see the beautiful sunlight streaming through the attic window but forget that Anne Frank unlike the visitors who will soon see the same light when they freely walk the city’s streets was trapped in this very room. This past week we were reminded of this stark truth.

Amsterdam did not try to save Anne. Miep Gies did.

It is not about a city, but one person.

If only cities and nations could be led by the likes of such righteous people.

Have faith. History can turn on the actions of individuals.

“Then a messenger of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven, ‘Abraham! Abraham!’ And he answered, “Here I am.’” (Genesis 22)