Читать книгу The Holocaust: History in an Hour - Jemma Saunders J. - Страница 15

Prior to 1942, the experience of Jews in Western Europe was markedly different from that of Jews in eastern countries such as Poland, predominantly because no systematic ghettoization took place to the west of Germany. Each time another western country surrendered to the Nazi war machine, however, the Jews of that nation were subjected to discriminatory measures by the occupying forces. Anti-Semitic legislation was particularly stringently applied in the Netherlands and France, which fell to the Nazis in May and June 1940 respectively.

As had been the case in Germany since the mid-1930s, by the summer of 1942 Jews in the Netherlands and France were banned from cinemas, theatres, swimming pools and even from sitting on park benches. Curfews limited the hours they could spend outside their homes, and restrictions were placed on the shops they could visit, the transport they could use, and the healthcare and education they could receive. Refugees who had fled to these countries in the 1930s, in hope of security and tolerance, were no longer safe from Nazi persecution.

A Jewish lady in Amsterdam wearing a yellow star, 1941

Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-R99538 / CC-BY-SA