Planning for the Final Solution in Yad Vashem Studies, Volume XVII

Planning for the Final Solution against the Background of Developments in Holland in 1941

This study analyzes the Nazi leaders’ discussions concerning Jewish policy in the Netherlands in the spring of 1941, following a violent roundup in Amsterdam and a general protest strike. The occupation authorities, headed by Arthur Seyss-Inquart, set up a Jewish Council in Amsterdam. In April 1941 the SS requested that Seyss-Inquart implement an order from Heydrich to establish a Central Office for Jewish Emigration “as an example for the solution of the Jewish question.” Michman argues that the mass killings by the Einsatzgruppen in the East, forced labor, starvation, and emigration were all part of this solution. The article describes Seyss-Inquart’s resistance to the Emigration Office and Hitler’s personal intervention in the dispute. With the adoption of the extermination policy, the Office became a branch of Eichmann's deportation machinery. It is concluded that the general trend of Jewish policy was set by Berlin and by Hitler himself, and that even when gassing became the primary method of eliminating the Jews, emigration of small groups remained an option.