Like most municipalities, Assen played no role in the restoration of rights to the property of Jewish residents. After the liberation in 1945, the government tried to restore or compensate the rightful owners as much as possible with their property. This was the responsibility of a separate body and local municipalities had no influence on this, explains the Drents Archief.
After the liberation, Jews in the Netherlands received little understanding from society and little attention from the government. The Drents Archief concludes that this was also the case in Assen. The municipality adhered to the rules in force at the time and focused on the reconstruction of Assen, but took no action to support Jewish residents in particular.
During the war, the Jewish community in Assen was almost completely wiped out. Of the 550 Jewish residents who lived in Assen at the start of the war, only 25 returned.
Furthermore, the Drents Archief concludes that Assen has not imposed additional assessments on Jewish homeowners and has not disproportionately disadvantaged Jewish landowners in land transactions.
Mayor of Assen Marco Out calls dealing with Jewish residents ‘a black page in local history’. “Fortunately, on the one hand, we have not come across any very harrowing situations, in which buildings have been removed from the Jewish residents in a strange way by the municipality. But the way in which the municipality has taken care of the returning Jews in Assen has not been good at all” , concludes Out.
“They did not receive the understanding and support they deserved during the reconstruction. The treatment of the municipality was often cold and cold. With the knowledge we now have, it is difficult for us to imagine that,” continues the mayor.
A few members of the Jewish community in Assen also attended the presentation of the report. “The investigation is a kind of satisfaction. Although of course we would have preferred it to have happened earlier. We are the second generation, our parents have been through the war. The investigation would have been much more important to them than to us,” responds Niek van der Location of the Foundation for the Protection of Interests in the Former Jewish Community of Assen.
Van der Oord is not shocked by the results of the report. “It is like finding out that water is wet. We were born with how it went. In this case it concerns Jewish real estate, but there are many other examples that show how terrible the war was.”
According to him, the municipality must find a way to keep the story under attention. He himself thinks it is good to involve the youth in this. “The group of people who experienced the war is getting smaller and smaller. You also saw that during the commemoration last week in Assen: interest is decreasing.”
“We have to keep the story alive so it doesn’t happen again,” he concludes.