...Regulations which forced Jews to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing as a means of identification were announced in the Netherlands on the 29th of April 1942. Those caught without the badge after the 5th of May, when they came into effect, were arrested, and detained for a six-week period to serve at Mauthausen. In the Netherlands everyone knew that this was a death sentence.
Deportations of Jews from the Netherlands began in July 1942. The last train left Westerbork for Auschwitz on the 3rd of September 1944. During these two years, the Germans and their Dutch collaborators deported some 107,000 Jews, mostly to Auschwitz and Sobibor, where they were murdered. Only 5,200 survived.
Because some Dutch citizens couldn’t bear to see what was happening to their country and people and resisted the occupation, they joined the resistance. The resistance’s counterintelligence, domestic sabotage and communications networks helped to provide key support to the Allied forces throughout the liberation of Holland.
Members of the resistance, if discovered, were immediately sentenced to death.
Van Dijk initially helped the resistance by supplying her fellow Jews with hiding places, identity papers, and necessities. Between 25,000-30,000 Jews went into hiding in the Netherlands and Ans Van Dijk was one of them. Hiding in the Amsterdam’s Marco Polostraat, she had accommodated two Jewish ladies at another address in the same street. However,
those ladies were betrayed and in turn told that the hiding place had been handed to them by Van Dijk who was arrested on Easter Sunday 1943 by Pieter Schaap – a detective of the Office of Jewish Affairs of the Amsterdam police. At the office, Ans was given a choice: either go to the East or work together with the Nazis. She decided to team up with the SD – the German Security Police, and from that moment on her life took a dramatic turn.
Prenteding to be a member of the illegal resistance organization “Free Nederlands”, she offered to help Jews find hiding places and obtain false papers. Van Dijk convinced dozens of Jews that she sought to help them. Instead, she betrayed their hiding places to Schaap, who in turn had the Jews arrested. Her house at Jekerstraat street in Amsterdam served as a trap.
The previously rather shy woman with little self-confidence blossomed through her work for the bureau. In addition, she received praise and recognition for every person who got caught by the Germans with her help.
Within a couple of months of making her arrangement with Schaap, van Dijk found herself at the head of a group of women hunting Jews. Among these women were Rosalie Roozendaal...
Deportations of Jews from the Netherlands began in July 1942. The last train left Westerbork for Auschwitz on the 3rd of September 1944. During these two years, the Germans and their Dutch collaborators deported some 107,000 Jews, mostly to Auschwitz and Sobibor, where they were murdered. Only 5,200 survived.
Because some Dutch citizens couldn’t bear to see what was happening to their country and people and resisted the occupation, they joined the resistance. The resistance’s counterintelligence, domestic sabotage and communications networks helped to provide key support to the Allied forces throughout the liberation of Holland.
Members of the resistance, if discovered, were immediately sentenced to death.
Van Dijk initially helped the resistance by supplying her fellow Jews with hiding places, identity papers, and necessities. Between 25,000-30,000 Jews went into hiding in the Netherlands and Ans Van Dijk was one of them. Hiding in the Amsterdam’s Marco Polostraat, she had accommodated two Jewish ladies at another address in the same street. However,
those ladies were betrayed and in turn told that the hiding place had been handed to them by Van Dijk who was arrested on Easter Sunday 1943 by Pieter Schaap – a detective of the Office of Jewish Affairs of the Amsterdam police. At the office, Ans was given a choice: either go to the East or work together with the Nazis. She decided to team up with the SD – the German Security Police, and from that moment on her life took a dramatic turn.
Prenteding to be a member of the illegal resistance organization “Free Nederlands”, she offered to help Jews find hiding places and obtain false papers. Van Dijk convinced dozens of Jews that she sought to help them. Instead, she betrayed their hiding places to Schaap, who in turn had the Jews arrested. Her house at Jekerstraat street in Amsterdam served as a trap.
The previously rather shy woman with little self-confidence blossomed through her work for the bureau. In addition, she received praise and recognition for every person who got caught by the Germans with her help.
Within a couple of months of making her arrangement with Schaap, van Dijk found herself at the head of a group of women hunting Jews. Among these women were Rosalie Roozendaal...
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LearningTranscript
00:00The 10th of May, 1940, World War II, the Netherlands.
00:11Nazi Germany invades Holland and the German air forces, the Luftwaffe, use paratroopers
00:16in the capture of tactical points and to assist in the advance of ground troops across the
00:20country.
00:22The invasion is accompanied by heavy aerial bombardment of Rotterdam and culminates on
00:26the 14th of May with the destruction of its entire historic center.
00:31Because the Germans threaten to bomb the city of Utrecht in the same way, the Dutch forces
00:35surrender one day later.
00:38Soon after the Nazis start to occupy the whole country and pass new anti-Jewish laws which
00:43are designed to exclude Jewish people from society and restrict their livelihood.
00:48The systematic deportations of Dutch Jews to death camps start in July 1942.
00:54Many Jews go into hiding, but the possibility of their survival is reduced by the presence
00:59of Jew hunters, who are tempted by the lure of monetary rewards.
01:04One such Jew hunter is Ans van Dijk.
01:08Ans van Dijk was born on the 24th of December, 1905, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to Jewish
01:14parents Aaron van Dijk and Katia Blick.
01:17Ans was a difficult child and was under the care of a pediatrician from the age of five.
01:23In 1919, at the age of fourteen, she lost her mother.
01:27In 1927, Ans married Abraham Querido, who like her was of Jewish descent.
01:33The marriage remained childless and they separated in 1935.
01:38Soon after, Van Dijk began a lesbian relationship with a woman named Miep Staudel, whom she
01:42employed in a shop named Maison Evany on the Nieuwendijk, which is a major shopping street
01:47in central Amsterdam.
01:50The two women lived together in an apartment above the store, liked to go out in cafés,
01:54and Van Dijk made numerous friends in the Amsterdam lesbian scene.
01:59World War II started on the 1st of September, 1939.
02:03The same year, Ans' father died in a psychiatric institution.
02:07On the 10th of May, 1940, Germany invaded the Netherlands.
02:11Soon after, a civil administration was installed under SS auspices and Artur Seys Inquart was
02:17appointed Reichskommissar of the Netherlands.
02:20Among his first steps were a series of laws posing economic discriminations against the
02:24Jews.
02:26During 1940, the German occupation authorities banned Jews from the civil service and required
02:31Jews to register the assets of their business enterprises.
02:35On the 3rd of October the same year, Ans Van Dijk and Abraham Querido were officially divorced.
02:40In January 1941, the German authorities required all Jews to register themselves as Jews.
02:47A total of 159,806 persons were registered, including 19,561 persons born of mixed marriages.
02:57The total number included some 25,000 Jewish refugees from the German Reich.
03:01A Jewish council was established in February 1941.
03:06On the 22nd and 23rd of February the same year, German forces raided the Jewish quarter
03:11in Amsterdam, arresting and deporting more than 400 Jewish men to the Boechenwald and
03:15Mauthausen concentration camps.
03:18The Dutch people's reaction was unique among the Nazi-occupied Europe.
03:22They organised the February Strike, a two-day general strike which started on the 25th of
03:27February 1941.
03:29German officials brutally suppressed the strike.
03:32This action was followed by a hardening in Nazi policy.
03:36The German authorities, as well as collaborating Dutch authorities and civil services, segregated
03:41Jews from the general Dutch population and incarcerated 15,000 of them in German-administered
03:47forced labour camps.
03:49The Germans then ordered the concentration of Jews in Amsterdam and sent foreign and
03:53stateless Jews to Westerbork transit camp in the northeast part of the country.
03:58Some of the remaining provincial Jews were sent to the Voogd camp.
04:02The sign Forbidden for Jews appeared on the doors and gates of cafes, swimming pools,
04:08sports fields, museums, zoos, libraries, theatres, markets, and many other public places.
04:16Jews had to hand over their valuables and their businesses were confiscated.
04:20Such was also the case of a shop owned by Arntz van Dijk, who had to close it in November
04:251941.
04:26After that, in order to conceal herself, she dyed her hair blonde and managed to obtain
04:32a false identity card in the name of Alphonsia Maria Ani de Jong.
04:37Our friend Miep Stoodal fled to Switzerland in July of the following year.
04:42Regulations which forced Jews to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing as a means
04:45of identification were announced in the Netherlands on the 29th of April 1942.
04:51Those caught without the badge after the 5th of May when they came into effect were arrested
04:56and detained for a six-week period to serve at Mauthausen.
04:59In the Netherlands, everyone knew that this was a death sentence.
05:04Deportations of Jews from the Netherlands began in July 1942.
05:08The last train left Westerbork for Auschwitz on the 3rd of September 1944.
05:14During these two years, the Germans and their Dutch collaborators deported some 107,000
05:19Jews, mostly to Auschwitz and Sobibor, where they were murdered.
05:24Only 5,200 survived.
05:27Because some Dutch citizens couldn't bear to see what was happening to their country
05:30and people and resisted the occupation, they joined the resistance.
05:34The resistance's counter-intelligence, domestic sabotage, and communications networks
05:39helped to provide key support to the Allied forces throughout the liberation of Holland.
05:44Members of the resistance, if discovered, were immediately sentenced to death.
05:49Van Dyck initially helped the resistance by supplying her fellow Jews with hiding places,
05:53identity papers, and necessities.
05:56Between 25,000 and 30,000 Jews went into hiding in the Netherlands and Ans Van Dyck was one
06:01of them.
06:03Living in Amsterdam's Markopolostraat, she had accommodated two Jewish ladies at another
06:07address in the same street.
06:09However, these ladies were betrayed and in turn told that the hiding place had been handed
06:14to them by Van Dyck, who was arrested on Easter Sunday, 1943, by Pieter Scarp, a detective
06:20of the Office of Jewish Affairs of the Amsterdam Police.
06:24At the office, Ans was given a choice.
06:27Either go to the East or work together with the Nazis.
06:30She decided to team up with the SD, the German security police, and from that moment on,
06:35her life took a dramatic turn.
06:38Pretending to be a member of the illegal resistance organization Free Netherlands, she offered
06:42to help Jews find hiding places and obtain false papers.
06:47Van Dyck convinced dozens of Jews that she sought to help them.
06:51Instead, she betrayed their hiding places to Scarp, who in turn had the Jews arrested.
06:56Her house in Jekerstraat in Amsterdam served as a trap.
07:00The previously rather shy woman, with little self-confidence, blossomed through her work
07:04for the bureau.
07:05In addition, she received praise and recognition for every person who got caught by the Germans
07:11with her help.
07:12Within a couple of months of making her arrangement with Scarp, Van Dyck found herself at the
07:16head of the group of women hunting Jews.
07:19Among these women were Rosalie Rosendahl, who tried to protect herself and her mother
07:24from deportation, and Branka Simons as well, was given the choice by the SD to be deported
07:29or to help track down Jews in hiding.
07:32Both Ans Van Dyck and Simons were regularly placed in a cell with arrested Jews and thus
07:37obtained further information from them.
07:40However, the most fanatical of the group was Ans Van Dyck, whom Peter Scarp, her Nazi superior,
07:46described as the best of his ten employees.
07:49She developed what the prosecutor later described as a satanic hunting instinct.
07:54She betrayed anyone who got in her way, friends, her own brother, his wife, and their three
08:00children, as well as the family of her own girlfriend.
08:03Abraham Querido, her former husband, died on the 30th of June 1944, in the Blechhammer
08:09concentration camp, however, a connection between his deportation and the activities
08:14of Van Dyck is not confirmed.
08:17Van Dyck also tried to make an appointment with Louis Tudor, the brother of her friend
08:21Miep, who had fled to Switzerland.
08:24Fortunately, Louis did not trust the case, did not show up, and survived the war.
08:30Together with her accomplices, Ans Van Dyck betrayed 145 people, 107 Jews, and 38 non-Jewish
08:38Dutchmen in the period between May 1943 and August 1944.
08:43Only a small proportion of these people survived the concentration camps, however, she may
08:48have been responsible for the deaths of as many as 700 people.
08:53In his book, The Backyard of the Secret Annex, author Gerard Cremmer claims that Van Dyck
08:58was responsible for betraying Ans Frank and seven other Jews in hiding behind Otto Frank's
09:02office building at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam.
09:06According to Cremmer, his late father, also named Gerard Cremmer, occasionally spotted
09:11Van Dyck during his visits to a Nazi office building where Cremmer had worked during the
09:15war.
09:16There, she supposedly met with handlers and made phone calls.
09:20But despite independent and police studies, this theory has neither been proved nor disproved.
09:26After the Allied landing in Normandy in June 1944, the Western Allies rapidly advanced
09:32in the direction of the Dutch border.
09:34The invasion and the growing certainty that Germany would lose the war did not dampen
09:38the zeal of Ans Van Dyck and her colleagues.
09:41After they came into contact with a resistance fighter and hinted that they themselves were
09:45also involved in the underground, they won his trust and traced a number of hiding places
09:50through him.
09:51On the 18th of August 1944, the Germans raided various places in the Dutch town of Zeist
09:57and arrested 30 to 40 people, including 12 Jews.
10:02Only a few of those 12 survived the war.
10:04In the Netherlands, between 25,000 and 30,000 Jews went into hiding during the war.
10:10Two thirds of those managed to survive.
10:13The Germans officially surrendered all their troops in the Netherlands on the 5th of May,
10:181945, three days before the general capitulation of Germany.
10:23After the end of the war, Van Dyck moved to The Hague, where she was arrested at her girlfriend's
10:27home on the 20th of June, 1945.
10:31Charged with 23 counts of treason, Van Dyck appeared before a special court in Amsterdam
10:36and confessed to all the counts against her, explaining that she had only acted out of
10:39self-preservation, adding her enormous fear of the SD as an explanation for her traitorous role.
10:46During her trial, which began in February 1947, Van Dyck admitted to helping the Nazis
10:51capture at least 145 Jews, including her relatives.
10:56Her ex-lover, whose relatives had been betrayed by Van Dyck as well, referred to her as a
11:01devil in human form.
11:04Requests to have her psychologically examined were rejected by the presiding judge, who
11:08asked her, how can you still sleep, don't you always see all those people in front
11:13of you?
11:14Ans Van Dyck was sentenced to death for treason.
11:18She filed appeals to both the court and the Queen Wilhelmina, but both were rejected.
11:23Van Dyck's accomplices, Rosalie Rosendaal and Branka Simons, were arrested as well.
11:29Rosendaal was released from prison in 1947, Simons in 1959.
11:35The day before her execution, in a final, desperate attempt to save her life, Ans Van
11:40Dyck had been baptised and joined the Roman Catholic Church, however, nothing could save
11:46her.
11:47Ans Van Dyck was 42 years old when she was executed by firing squad on the 14th of January
11:531948.
11:54Peter Skarp, Van Dyck's former superior, jointly responsible for the arrest of 10,000 Jews,
12:01was executed the same way, one year later.
12:04After the war, a total of 39 people were executed in the Netherlands because of their
12:09war past.
12:10Of those 39, Van Dyck, who has become synonymous with treason of the Jews in the Netherlands,
12:16was the only woman.
12:18There were no tears shed for Ans Van Dyck.