What do we not all know – or no longer – about Antizionism in the Netherlands? How did the change in its appreciation after the war took place? It must be the commitment of a study by the NIOD that director Hinke Piersma study announces on Thursday in her lecture as a special professor of History of the Second World War at the University of Amsterdam.
The cover in public opinion on Israel and Palestine also affects historians such as Piersma. “I have not previously asked myself about the Dutch attitude towards Israel, which is the result of the impact that the Holocaust has had.”
In her inaugural In the spell of the story Piersma argues for more historical empathy, modesty and responsibility in a broad sense. She opposes the ‘poured into concrete’ stories that are made into weapons in social polarization: about the Second World War, about the war in Gaza. “We don’t know that much,” she says in her office in the NIOD in Amsterdam. “It would be good if historians also give themselves more account of it.”
Piersma (61) experienced this when working on Forget the sad days … (2024), her biography of the Jewish lawyer David Simons (1904-1998), a convinced Zionist, employee of the Hague Jewish Council and later one of the founders of the CIDI. “I noticed that you constantly come across things that we just don’t know. Not because they have not yet been discovered, but because they are gone, disappeared. That requires modesty.”
Do we have to go back to ‘gray’ when it comes to the war?
“No, certainly not. That is also a clear answer: it was, and not different. We want to answer so badly. While there is sometimes simply not there. The title of my inaugural lecture refers to the lecture of NIOD director Hans Blom from 1983, In the spell of right and wrong?. In the meantime, that is my position, we have been banned from stories. They must be clear and unambiguous. But that is not history. “
You mention the hype around the ‘traitor of Anne Frank’ as an example.
“Because you can clearly see how history is reduced a sensational whodunnit. I mean that not only as a criticism of journalism, it shows how strong the need is to resolve things and indicate guilty, close the story. But I think we never conclude a historic trauma, we have to shape it. “
I notice that they think they already know everything about the Second World War
Do we ever know enough? You have to judge, also a historian.
“Yes, of course, I do that too. What I argue for is that we make it clear how provisional historical judgments are, how much space there is between all kinds of firm stories. You should not have the pretension to speak the last word. I notice that they already think they know everything about the Second World War. My striving is that they are leaving the realization that it is not that way.”
You are going to do research into Zionism in the Netherlands. What do we not know about that yet?
Before the war, Zionism here was only a small current and among Jews very controversial. It was New Israelite Weekbladnow very pro-Israel, the Zionists saw as ‘hotheads’. After the war you see a huge capital. Now everything was about the safety of the state of Israel. That cover is fascinating, but also the question: where did that anti -ionist sound stay from before the war? Among the survivors of the Holocaust were also anti -ionists, but they were silent after the war, is my assumption. “
A sensitive subject, in the current social context.
“People who criticize Israel are now accused of anti -Semitism or even threatened. While such criticism was once already there. I want to see how the context has changed until the 1970s.”
Does it not matter whether Antizionism comes before the foundation of Israel or Erna? What does Antizionism mean now that is there?
“That is a good question, which will certainly have to be addressed. I am not concerned with the existence of the state of Israel, but about the development of Antizionism in the Netherlands and the role that the Holocaust has played. It is now being openly utilized to get rid of criticism of Israel.”
Are you not afraid of the reproach of Holocaust relativation?
“Everything that has to do with the war and the Holocaust is vulnerable. But I think we can again create more room for historical awareness of the Holocaust by separating it from its political use. That can also help to pry the concrete positions in the current debate.”
There is busy universities to take over the definition of anti -Semitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which calls some criticism of Israel anti -Semitic. What do you think about that?
“There is pressure, but I think we should take a good look at that definition. Even one of the authors of it said that it was not the intention that that definition was used to exclude people from the debate.”