Jews who returned to Assen after the Second World War were left to fend for themselves, displaced, traumatized and stripped of all possessions. “A dark page in the history of Assen.”
Councilor Bouke Weening (Christian Union) said this on Thursday evening during the Assen council meeting. On behalf of the entire municipal council, he showed compassion to relatives of Asser Jews, compassion that was lacking in the Drenthe capital all those years after the war.
A delegation from the Foundation for the Advocacy of Interests in the Former Jewish Community of Assen was present to receive the warm words.
“Back to what?”
“The few Jews who survived the concentration camps came back. Back to what? Back to robbed or looted houses, but above all, back to a city where understanding and support were lacking. And they had already lost everything,” said Weening.
During the council meeting, the city council requested special attention for this lack of moral justice. “We cannot turn back history. But as residents of Assen and as a municipal council, we can indicate that we recognize this dark page in our history (…) and that we understand that the pain experienced as a result is still felt several generations later,” Weening said.
‘Incomprehensible that no one is saying anything about this’
The issue surrounding Mayor Lohman has been extensively written up in the recent book Only from the war by Niek van der Oord. Van der Oord is a member of the Foundation for the Advocacy of Interests in the Former Jewish Community of Assen and attended the council meeting on Thursday evening.
He says he is happy with the council’s nice words, but is at the same time displeased by the lack of response to Mayor Lohman’s actions. “Personally, I don’t understand why they don’t talk about the mayor. I did a lot of research into this issue for my book and I found the mayor’s actions shocking. It is incomprehensible that no one is saying anything about this.”
Research into the role of the municipality
Assen once had a large Jewish community. It was almost wiped out during the Second World War. Only a few dozen of the 550 Jewish residents of Assen survived. Like many other municipalities in the Netherlands, Assen also wanted to know what the role of the municipality was in the theft of real estate owned by Jewish residents.
After the war, it often happened that Jewish homes were looted or even robbed, with the cooperation of the government. For example, it turned out that three Jewish residents of Rolde and Gieten in the municipality of Aa en Hunze had been robbed of their homes. Meppel also examined her own past. It turned out that the municipality facilitated the German occupier with information when requested, although Meppel had no direct involvement in the theft of Jewish real estate.
Broadly speaking, the situation in Assen is not much different, according to research by the Drenthe Archives. The municipality had no part in the theft of Jewish real estate and eventually all 170 Jewish plots of land returned to their rightful owners or heirs after the war. But on the other hand, the municipality did nothing to prevent the occupier from taking anti-Jewish measures. Moreover, returning Jews in Assen were completely left to fend for themselves. “And that affected us,” Weening said.
Questionable role of mayor
A striking passage in the investigation is the questionable role of mayor Johan Bothenius Lohman. He requisitioned a house on Dr. Nassaulaan 14 of the Jewish person in hiding Moos Boekbinder, to take up residence there himself. Lohman refused to leave the house and it came to a lawsuit, which was won by the mayor.
Mayor Lohman did not leave the house until 1949. Bookbinder had already died by then. Lohman became an honorary citizen of Assen and a street was also named after him. Although the mayor did nothing wrong according to the letter of the law, his attitude is illustrative of how Jewish returnees were treated.