Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Search

Ghettos

Introduction

(Sorted Alphabetically)

Biala Podlaska

Bialystok

Bochnia

Brody

Czestochowa

Grodno

Izbica

Jozefow

Kielce

Krakow

Krasnystaw

Kovno

Lodz

Lubartow

Lublin

Lvov

Miedzyrzec

Minsk

Piaski

Prague

Documents

Terezin

The "Show Camp"

Przemysl

Radom

Riga

Rzeszow

Siedlce

Tarnow

Terezin

Tluszcz

Vilnius

Warsaw

Zamosc

Zwolen

The Judenrat

Judenrat Gallery

(Sorted Alphabetically)

Efraim Barasz

David Cohen

Adam Czerniakow

Abraham Gepner

Emanuel Ringelblum

Chaim Rumkowski

Prominent Jewish
Personalities

Mordecai Anielewicz

Simon Dubnow

Sigmund Freud

Mendel Grossman

Chaim Kaplan

Janusz Korczak

Abraham Lewin

Alfred Nossig

The Jewish Order Police

Home  -  Holocaust Prelude  -  Euthanasia  -  Einsatzgruppen  -  Aktion Reinhard  -  Ghettos  -  Revolt & Resistance

Other Camps  -  Holocaust Economics  -   The German Occupation  -  Survivors Stories  -  Trials  -  Image Gallery  -  Appendix A-Z

David Cohen

David Cohen

David Cohen was
born in Deventer, Holland in 1882, he was an expert in papyrology and
became a professor of ancient history, first in Leyden, and then in
Amsterdam.

He was active in
Jewish affairs from an early age - he joined the Zionist movement in 1904
and held key posts in it. He was one of the sponsors and organisers of the
Zionist Students Union.and the Jewish Youth Federation.

During World War
One David Cohen was active in providing assistance to Jewish refugees,
mainly from Germany, and became the secretary of the Committee for
Refugees. He was a member of the Jewish Council in The Hague and then in
Amsterdam and in 1934 was elected to the Standing Committee of the Union
of Ashkenazic Communities.

In 1933 when the
Nazis rose to power in Germany, it was on Cohen’s initiative that the
Comte voor Bijzondere Joodse Belangen (Committee for Special Jewish
Affairs) was established and he became the executive chairman of its
sub-committee on refugees.

The Joodse Raad (Cohen sits  second on the
left)

Following the
German occupation of the Netherlands in May 1940, Cohen was among the
sponsors of the Jewish Co-ordinating Committee set up in the December of
that year.

On 12 February 1941
David Cohen together with Abraham Asscher formed the Jewish Council
(Joodse Raad), at the suggestion of the Germans. They both as chairmen
taking part in the daily running of the Jewish Council and determining its
policy in dealing with the Germans.

During the
occupation the Jewish Council under severe attack from Lodewijk Ernst
Visser and from the Dutch government –in-exile, for its policy of
co-operation with the Germans. This was the background for Cohen’s
conflict with Visser, who was opposed to such collaboration.

In the Joodse Raad
itself, there was also opposition to Cohen’s policy, but he was always
successful in overcoming this resistance and obtaining majority support
for his position in the Co-ordinating Committee.

Joodse Raad sign

When the Allies
broadcast their declaration on the 17 December 1942 regarding hundreds of
thousands of Polish Jews being put to death by barbaric means, Asscher
discounted the claims saying:

“As far as
I am concerned, the reports are nothing but English propaganda, with the
sole intention of inciting the world against Germany.”

David Cohen
later recalled his feelings regarding the broadcast:

“The fact
that the Germans had perpetrated atrocities against Polish Jews was no
reason for thinking that they behaved in the same way towards Dutch Jews,
firstly because the Germans had always held Polish Jews in disrepute, and
secondly because in the Netherlands, unlike Poland, they had to sit up and
take notice of public opinion.”

Entrance to the Joodse Raad
offices

On 23 September
1943, Cohen was arrested with the other members of the Jewish Council who
were still in Amsterdam and taken first to Westerbork transit camp and
from there to the transit ghetto of Theresienstadt near Prague.

When he returned to
the Netherlands after the war, the Dutch government instituted judicial
proceedings against him, charging him with collaborating with the enemy.

The prosecutor
charges that without the collaboration of the Joodse Raad, far fewer Jews
would have been deported from the Netherlands. Cohen was briefly detained
and in July of 1951 the Minister of Justice formally dropped the case "for
reasons of general public interest."

It must be noted
that Cohen's mother, three brothers, and sister were murdered as Auschwitz
and Sobibor.

Deportation of Dutch
Jews

In 1947 Cohen was
also charged before a Jewish Community tribunal, where he put up a
passionate defence of his policy during the occupation, but he was found
guilty and was barred from holding office in any Jewish institution.

In 1950 the
sentence was annulled, Cohen returned to his university post, but did not
become active in Jewish public life.

In 1955 he
published his memoirs Zwervend en Dolend (Fugitive and Vagabond),
a publication dealing with his involvement
and dealings with Jewish fugitives. he died in 1967 a broken
man.

Sources:

Encyclopedia of
the Holocaust - Israel Gutman (Ed) - New York 1990.

Final
Journey – The Fate of the Jews in Nazi Europe by Martin Gilbert, published
by George Allen and Unwin Ltd London 1979.

Biografisch Woordenboek
van Nederland 3 (Den Haag 1989)

Copyright: Chris Webb
H.E.A.R.T 2007

Remember Me  |   Special Thanks
|   Holocaust Links
|   Publications

© 2007  H.E.A.R.T  All Rights
Reserved.