Once again on the February Strike: who were the first strikers?

Introduction

We proudly present this small contribution from an eyewitness and participant in the historic strike against the persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands to our readers. The author is Maurice Ferares and in the footnotes that accompany his testimony, you can find more information on him.

On May 10, 1940, the German army invaded the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium simultaneously (Code name Fall Gelb). Because he considered military progress too slow, Field Marshal Georg von Küchler decided to accelerate the surrender of the Netherlands with all available means. This involved the bombardment of Rotterdam that took place on 14 May 1940. This action served as a warning and provided a model for bombardments in the future. The entire historic town centre was razed to the ground. Between 650 and 900 people were dead and more than 80,000 people had become homeless. After the Germans threatened to bomb Utrecht, the Netherlands capitulated.

On November 26, 1940, the students began to protest in large numbers against a measure, imposed by the occupation authorities, which was to dismiss all professors and lecturers of Jewish origin. The strike lasted a couple of days. Subsequently, the university was closed. The discontent of the working population, which already existed before the war, came to an explosion on 17 February 1941. The first major labour conflict happened on a shipyard in Amsterdam, where 2200 workers laid down their tools in protest against the "compulsory labour service" (i.e. forced labour in Germany). Other reasons for the workers to strike were the low level of the social security benefits and the working conditions. Thus, they prevented that a 100 of their working mates went on a transport to Hamburg. With a large-scale boycott of the convocation notifications from the authorities in 1940, workers had already demonstrated that they did no intention to go to work in Germany.

It is against this background that, on February 25 and 26, 1941, a strike against the first anti-Jewish raid (on 22 and 23 February) erupted in several Dutch cities. This historically significant strike became known as the February Strike, the first strike against the persecution of the Jews. A combination of social misery and cruel persecution of their Jewish fellow citizens drove the workers of Amsterdam and other cities to use the only weapon in their possession. That weapon is the strike.

Marcel Souzain

PS: Maurice Ferares wished to insert a quotation from a publication of the Marx-Lenin-Luxembourg-Front in his original contribution, which was published in Dutch on March 2, 2016.

by Maurice Ferares (March 2, 2016)

From a participant in the historic February strike of 1941 in Amsterdam

It is an excellent thing that the February strike[1] is commemorated annually. However, in recent days, strange claims have been circulated[2]. Therefore, someone[3] who was actively involved in the strike is presenting here some comments.

Let us set the record straight. The strike broke out spontaneously and was not organized by the illegal Communist Party. Besides, the first call to strike was published in the illegal Marx-Lenin-Luxembourg Front[4] paper ”Spartacus” of Henk Sneevliet[5], Willem Dolleman[6] and Ab Menist[7]. At the end of January 1941, the MLL-Front had circulated the following address: “The horrific and cowardly hunt for our Jewish citizens has begun. Workers, technicians, small businessmen, make use of the protest strike against this brutal violence.” The MLL Front was the illegal continuation of the Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party [(RSAP][8]. That call had no effect, but perhaps it did contributed to the ripening of minds that resulted in the February strike. (Sneevliet, Dolleman, Menist and all the other members of the leadership were executed on April 13, 1942[9] by the Germans).

The strike began on February 25, 1941 at the Noordermarkt where a number of workers from the Municipal Waste Authority met. Piet Nak[10] and Willem Kraan[11], both of whom were members of the Communist Party Holland (CPH)[12], as the CPN was called before the war, addressed them.

Both were arrested. Piet Nak survived the concentration camps but the Germans executed Willem Kraan in November 1942. A statue of him stands in Amsterdam, on the corner of the Willem Kraanstraat and the Vlugtlaan.

The leadership of the CPH was embarrassed by the strike. Indeed, in August 1939, Hitler and Stalin had concluded a non-aggression pact, which, among others things, included the partition of Poland between Germany and the USSR and whereby the Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and much of Finland and Romania, fell under the influence of the USSR.

Despite the German occupation of the Netherlands and without any impediment of the occupier, members of the Vereniging Vrienden der Sovjet-Unie [Netherlands-USSR Friendship Society][13] peddled the magazine ”Rusland van Heden” [Russia Today] until in June 1941 Hitler attacked Soviet Union.

On the day of the strike, workers from the Municipal Waste Authority were the first to lay down their tools. It is incorrect to state that the first to strike were the tram drivers of the Amsterdam Municipal Tramway. By noon, the writer of these lines, together with a group of people, halted a tram in the Rijnstraat and chased the passengers and the driver.

This writer, who was then a member of the illegal CPH, typewrote the famous leaflet of CPH, in which the word STRIKE was repeated three times consecutively. It is likely that the leaflet was reproduced on different locations in Amsterdam. The same thing was true for the illegal newspaper De Waarheid[14] [The Truth] for which we were (also) responsible. When I use ”we” I refer to the sculptor Huib van Lith[15], Cor Basart, a painter in the Ijsselstraat, another sculptor Cor van Teeseling and myself. Huib van Lith brought the texts to a studio belonging to Cor Basart[16]. This occured at a moment the strike had already broken out. Cor drew the headlines of the paper and leaflets. Cor van Teeseling[17], who would be arrested later and executed, assisted him sometimes.

This writer did all the type work for the production of the articles on stencils. The printing was done at the Dekker family’s home[18] (a family with six children and a father who was unemployed for long periods), which was located in the Noorderstraat. There was no question of a successful and extensive organization of the CPH. For security reasons, very few pre-war rank-and-file members of the party were involved in illegal work. Repeatedly the leadership of the CPH was able to save face, thanks to spontaneous actions of grass-root members. This was also the case with the February strike. Subsequently, nobody has the right to instrumentalize the strike. The entire population of Amsterdam carried out this act of resistance against the anti-Jewish measures taken by the Nazi occupiers.

The footnotes are the responsibility of the translator.