The NJ Police Chief Magazine Volume 23, Number 6 | Page 12

The New Jersey Police Chief Magazine | June 2017
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The role of the police, or more specifically their inaction, would be crucial to what happens next in the Netherlands. It
is hardly surprising as the order soon came about that the Dutch police came under the control of the German police,
specifically the Higher SS Police, in a new Police State structure (Art. 5 of decree 3/6/40), and any neutral observer
would immediately see that the Dutch police were no longer autonomous but part of the larger German SS mission.
Police chiefs had to draw up plans on how they wold integrate into this new model.
After much re-organisation (too much to go into at this point, but readers would benefit from
reading Cyrille Fijnaut's book - The History of the Dutch Police, 2008), the issue of whether or
not the Dutch police would follow orders of their SS masters came to the fore, specifically
with regard to the persecution of the Jews (and the Roma), which Fijnaut describes as a
'sensitive issue' (2008, p.127), after all, police officers were to uphold the laws of the
Netherlands, and Jews had done nothing to breach those laws.
A moral dilemma arose, and a number of police protested that they had been ordered to persecute Jews, or had been
duped into doing so. The more astute were faced with a challenge of relying upon their own values and moral
judgement, and to what extent they would collaborate with the SS in their decision made in 1941 to deport all Jews
to concentration camps, or extermination camps, in Germany and from mid 1942 this was completed on a
grand-scale, eventually rounding them up in their own houses.
These actions 'weighed heavily upon certain officers' (P.129) and revulsion in the action soon followed. This led to
dismissal and threats made against them and their families by the SS. Yet, some officers still protested, even in large
numbers, but that just meant the Germans would take the matter into their own hands using specialist units for the
job, which involved some police officers who ultimately may have taken matters too far in their collaboration. On the
other hand, some police officers joined the resistance movement, either leaving the police or doing this
surreptitiously, and this caused the Germans to bring about special measures including kidnapping families of police
officers until they followed orders, or until they came out of hiding, before sending them to concentration camps. This
drastic measure came about mainly because the authorities could not trust the Dutch police in such great numbers
that they did not believe that they could be counted upon to follow German persecution orders, indeed quite the
contrary, they were believed to be assisting the resistance movement both in the Netherlands and in Germany. (After
the war it was estimated some 120 police officers were either starved to death with their families, or executed by
firing squad, for failing to support the German plans). If you are a police officer reading this, what would you have
done? In fact, whatever role you are in, what would you have done?
Our colleague Dean Hollands started by reciting the poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller entitled 'First they came for the
socialists':
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Passionately recited by our facilitator, you could hear a pin drop!
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