User:Paltz4/Abraham Asscher

Abraham Asscher (Amsterdam,19 September 1880 – 2 May, 1950) was a Dutch Jewish businessman from Amsterdam, a politician, and a leader of his community who attained notoriety for his role during the German occupation of the Netherlands (1940-1945).

Early Career

Asscher’s grandfather founded the Asscher Diamond Company (now the Royal Asscher Diamond Company) in 1854, but it was Abraham and his brother Joseph who built its international fame. In 1907 the brothers opened a new factory at 127 Tolstraat in Amsterdam and soon they received a request from King Edward VII of Great Britain to cleave the legendary Cullinan Diamond, the largest rough gem-quality diamond ever found.

Public Service

Asscher translated his growing success in business into political and community involvement. In 1917, he took up a seat on the Provincial Council of North Holland for the Liberale Staatspartij (Liberal Party). And in the 1930s, he became a leader and spokesmen of the Dutch Jewish community. He served as the President of the nation’s central Jewish organization, the Nederlandsch-Israëlitsch Kerkgenootschap (Dutch Jewish Congregation).

Therefore when Jewish refugees began to flee in numbers to the Netherlands from the Nazi regime in Germany, it was Asscher, along with Professor David Cohen, who established (with government support) two organizations to deal with the situation. The Comité voor Bijzondere Joodse Belangen (Committee for Special Jewish Interests) and the Comité voor Joodse Vluchtelingen (Committee for Jewish Refugees) provided assistance and temporary accommodation to the refugees.

The Jewish Council

It was in this context that the Nazi occupiers later, on February 12, 1941, ordered Asscher and Cohen to head up a new Joodse Raad (Jewish Council); the only example of a Jewish Council in the German occupations of Western Europe. The first meeting was held at the Asscher Brothers headquarters in Tolstraat. The Joodse Raad had to mediate the occupation government’s orders to the Dutch Jewish community and, beginning in July 1942, to help organize the selection of Jewish deportees from the Netherlands to the concentration and extermination camps.

In September 1943, most of the remaining staff of the Joodse Raad, including Asscher were deported. Asscher, like most deported Dutch Jews, initially went to the Westerbork camp in the Drenthe province in the east of the country. From there, the Nazis transported him to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Postwar

Asscher survived his imprisonment at Bergen-Belsen and returned to Amsterdam after the conclusion of the war. The Dutch government exonerated him of charges of collaboration. But the Joodsche Eereraad (Jewish Council of Honor), a tribunal established to represent the Dutch Jewish community in investigating wartime collaboration with the Nazi occupiers, did not. It was particularly concerned with activity after August 15, 1942; a point from which it was considered obvious that the Joodse Raad was assisting in a mass-murder of Dutch Jews in occupied Poland’s extermination camps.

By the time that the Council of Honor ruled to exclude Asscher and Cohen from holding public office in the Dutch Jewish Community, Asscher had left the Community. When Asscher died in 1950 he was not buried in a Jewish cemetery, but instead at the Zorgflied cemetery.

Legacy

The actions of Asscher and the Joodse Raad during the German occupation were and are a controversial topic. Hans Knoop, in his history of the Joodse Raad, came to this conclusion:

“They issued deportation notices and urged the Jews in Het Joodsche Weekblad to obey these summons to the letter…Cohen declared after the war that ‘thanks to our efforts no Jew suffered from hunger in occupied Holland.’ That is the case. But thanks to Asscher and Cohen the deportation of the Jews in the Netherlands achieved a greater measure of perfection and efficiency than anywhere else in occupied Europe.”

Jacob Presser’s groundbreaking history of the Holocaust in the Netherlands, Ondergang (Destruction), also heavily criticized Asscher and Cohen. Presser argued that the elite of the Jewish community, represented by Asscher and Cohen, had sacrificed the "lesser" parts of the Jewish community in order to try and preserve its "best".

In 1980, the company that Asscher and his brother had brought to international fame and prominence was awarded the Royal title by Queen Juliana of the Netherlands; it is now known as Koninklijke Asscher Diamant Maatschappij (Royal Asscher Diamond Company). Abraham’s brother Joseph’s great-grandson, Edward Asscher, is the current President of the Company.

Sources

1) Dwork, Deborah and Robert-Jan van Pelt, "The Netherlands" in Wyman, David S. Ed., "The World Reacts to the Holocaust" (JHU Press, 1996).

2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asscher_Brothers

3) http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/Terrible_Choice/ter001.html

4) http://www.jhm.nl/amsterdam_eng.aspx?ID=39

5) http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Asscher