10. The Februaristaking “February strike”

Not much remains in Amsterdam of the pre-war Jewish quarter, an area where more than fifty thousand people lived, half of whom were of Jewish descent. Most of it has changed beyond recognition, demolished, but the layout of the neighbourhood has been largely preserved, and as a result, the main streets still lead to Jonas Daniël Meijerplein. The Portuguese synagogue on one side of this square and the building of the High German synagogue, which houses the Jewish Historical Museum, are reminders of times gone by. Between these two buildings stands the Dokwerker, a statue by Mari Andriessen. It was placed there as a symbol of the mass protest in 1941, the February strike, and the reaction to it in the rest of the Netherlands.

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Reason for the februaristaking

Countless books have been published about the persecution of the Jews and the way in which it was carried out by the Germans. The systematic manner in which this took place and the role of the WA and the NSB in this manhunt are among the darkest pages in Dutch history. The lukewarm reaction of many Dutch people is also not something to be proud of. Read the stories and you too will be overcome with feelings of horror. That this was possible, that it was accepted with almost no resistance, that all kinds of government agencies cooperated in tracking down and deporting people, is so sad that I cannot really put it into words. In that respect, the strike of 1941 is only a small band-aid on the wound. But at least it was an act of protest, a response to the brutal actions of the occupiers.

How did this strike come about? Who took the initiative to turn the indignation that had arisen among the population of Amsterdam into such a massive protest?
The ideas had been circulating among the resistance for some time. The leadership of the illegal local Communist Party also gradually developed the idea of a strike. The leaders of this group therefore contacted the trio consisting of de Groot, Dieters and my father. At that meeting, it was agreed that my father would come to Amsterdam to help organise a demonstration. This was an obvious choice, as it had already been agreed that he would focus primarily on the resistance in the capital.

This was no small task for someone who already had his hands full leading sabotage and espionage activities and also had to find time to write articles for the illegal newspaper De Waarheid. He also had to arrange financing for that newspaper.

Manifesto

Nevertheless, the strike went ahead, not least because of the famous manifesto calling on everyone to down tools for a day. After the war, there were discussions about who had written the text. According to some, it had been drafted during consultations between those directly involved in the strike leadership and my father. According to my eldest brother and others, it was written by my father in the days leading up to the strike, presumably during his stay with the de Smit family on Westlandgracht. After the war, Paul de Groot felt it necessary at one point to proclaim himself the inspiration behind the February strike and the spiritual father of the document. This was not his first lie concerning his resistance activities.
During the transfer of Lou Jansen’s farewell letters to the IISH in 2022, it became clear during the conversation that they believed Staakt Staakt Staakt had been written by Lou Jansen.
One thing was clear. The manifesto contributed to the mass protest, which was limited to Amsterdam and the surrounding area.

Start of strike

The strike began on Monday 25 February and, after a hesitant start, spread like wildfire. After the municipal tram staff in particular had broken the deadlock, it spread to industrial companies, after which numerous shops also closed their doors. Many people flocked to the city centre, where a large demonstration took place on the Noordermarkt. Everyone felt a little liberated that day.

The occupiers were initially surprised but reacted quickly. Rauter sent two Waffen SS battalions to Amsterdam and demanded drastic intervention by the police, who had remained neutral on the first day of the strike. The curfew, during which no one was allowed outside, was extended from half past eleven in the evening to half past seven. Newspaper editors were instructed not to publish anything about the situation in Amsterdam.
But the news that Amsterdam was on strike had already spread beyond the city. Travellers had spread the word, leading to industrial action in a number of places on Tuesday.

In Amsterdam, where companies continued to strike, it ended on Wednesday. The police intervened, allowing the trams to run again, and a third battalion of the Waffen-SS patrolled the city intensively, firing without warning in a number of cases. This action cost nine people their lives and many were injured.
This brought an end to a massive protest by the population. The attempt to organise a second strike on 6 March of that year failed.

As an event in history, the February strike may well have been a turning point in the attitude of the Dutch population. Historian Ben Seijes wrote, among other things, that the contrast between anti- and pro-Nazis was brought into such sharp relief that even those who had remained hidden until then could no longer deny the reality of the inhuman German actions. Something similar applied to the relationship between those who wanted to demonstrate openly against what the occupiers were doing and the part of the population that, willingly or unwillingly, did what they wanted. As a result, the strike was an important impetus for all those inclined to resist the enemy.

For the Jews, however, the strike did little to improve their situation. The Germans continued their relentless manhunt and only a small minority managed to escape.

But as a historical signal, it remains an event of value. Because the population declared its solidarity with their Jewish fellow citizens. The image of the Dockworker is therefore a beautiful symbol as a lasting reminder of this mass protest.

After the war

After the war, Lou Jansen and Jan Dieters only gained the recognition and appreciation that one might expect on the basis of their resistance activities for a few years. The reason for this is a story in itself that cannot be summarised in a few sentences. Several factors played a role.
Firstly, of course, they were no longer alive. They had been executed in 1943 and after the war most attention was focused on the survivors of the resistance.
Secondly, the communism they represented was quickly stripped of the laurels it had earned during the resistance after the war. The Cold War, the Iron Curtain, the Hungarian uprising and other events ensured that the Communist Party was reduced to the splinter party it had been before 1940.

After 1945, the names of Lou Jansen and Jan Dieters mainly appear in De Waarheid. Most notable was the presentation by Queen Wilhelmina on 9 August 1946 of the Resistance Cross to Lou Jansen’s widow. His name is usually mentioned in the resistance literature published at the time as the inspiration behind the February strike.

For a number of years, Lou Jansen’s name was linked to fundraising campaigns for De Waarheid.
Around 1950, there was a turnaround and their names disappeared from the public eye. The names of Jansen and Dieters disappeared from the pages of De Waarheid and were only mentioned when referring to the trio of de Groot, Dieters and Jansen. After that, Lou Jansen’s name was no longer mentioned at the annual commemoration of the February strike.
The reason for this disappearance is mentioned in a number of books and relates to the confessions
made by Jansen and Dieters after their arrest in 1943.

Shortly after the end of the war, the CPN enthusiastically capitalised on the leading role it had played during the February Strike in 1941. Initially, this event was commemorated annually in Amsterdam in close cooperation with other parties. When the Cold War began, this came to an end and at one point there were even two commemorations. A request from the Bureau for War Documentation in the late 1940s to the CPN leadership to collaborate on a publication about the events of 1941 was also rejected.

Cover-up

Some time later, Jaap Brandenburg, one of the leading figures in the CPN, was approached by Ben Sijes of the Bureau for War Documentation. Sijes showed him documents relating to the interrogation of Jan Dieters and Lou Jansen by the SD. These documents revealed that both men had distanced themselves from their communist ideals and had disclosed information about the party organisation and associated names. This was information that the CPN did not want to see published.

The literal text in Lou Jansen’s interrogation report read as follows:
“I am of the opinion that old and sincerely held ideals must be realised in other ways.
Based on this realisation that the path taken by communism is wrong and dangerous, I have decided to make this comprehensive confession in the hope of making amends for some things.
It is now the task of the German authorities to judge my actions and determine the extent of my punishment.
I am aware that I must bear the consequences of my actions.
However, my hope is that I can continue to serve humanity and the working class.“

Books about the February strike

The authors of the books consulted believe that Brandenburg and Paul de Groot subsequently decided by mutual agreement to stop using the names of Jansen and Dieters for membership campaigns and similar activities. The history as it was known in CPN circles was further adjusted in the sense that it was not Lou Jansen but Paul de Groot who had initiated the strike and written the famous manifesto ‘Strike, strike, strike’.

Without the cooperation of the CPN, Ben Sijes then went on to write the book “De Februaristaking 1941” (The February Strike of 1941), which was published in The question remains as to who was part of the committee that made the preparations for the strike. In any case, the SD appeared to be well informed and immediately after the strike, 22 men were arrested.

In a trial in September 1941, they were sentenced to severe prison terms.
In the historical accounts written after the war, the authors paid little attention to them.

You won’t find the names Jansen and Dieters in the Resistance Museum in Amsterdam.

After 1950, Piet Nak was portrayed by the media as the ringleader during a meeting on the Noordermarkt. It seemed as if Nak had personally initiated the February strike. The fact that he, of all people, was inexplicably released by the SD after severe interrogation makes us forget that 22 organisers of the strike were violently removed from their homes, interrogated with even greater violence and imprisoned for the entire war, insofar as they survived.

Literature consulted:
Dwars, duivels en dromend (Contrary, devilish and dreaming) by Ger Verrips
De man (Paul de Groot) die de weg wees (The man (Paul de Groot) who showed the way) by J.W.Stutje
The Communist Party of the Netherlands in Wartime by Frits Reuter
The Occupation by Lou de Jong
The struggle for the February strike by Annet Mooy
Party in resistance by Hansje Galesloot/Susan Legene

I do not own Sijes’ book. I have read it, however, and apart from a few details, it contains no information that differs from the above.
Part of the text of the confessions of Lou Jansen and Jan Dieters is reproduced earlier in this chapter. I can only guess at the reasons for their statements. The files at the NIOD suggest that their attitude must have changed during the interrogations. It should be borne in mind that the fear of discovery had already taken a heavy toll on their resilience during the previous three years.

To supplement the above, here are some additional details.
In 1986, a book by H. Galesloot and S. Legêne was published under the title ‘Partij in het verzet’ (Party in the Resistance), with the subtitle ‘De CPN in de Tweede Wereldoorlog’ (The CPN in the Second World War).
This book describes the events of the war as accurately as possible.
The book is still available on the second-hand market on the internet, and I purchased it myself through that route.

Review: This book has been praised from many quarters, and rightly so. It has been described as the possible beginning of the ’emancipation of the historiography of communism’. Both historians graduated with theses on the CPN in the first and last years of the war, respectively. This served as the basis for their work. They wanted to break with the dogmatic view of history expressed in many communist texts. The result is a highly readable work about five years of communist resistance in all its facets. It covers the first months, in which a hesitant, unclear attitude was taken; the February strike against the deportation of Jewish compatriots; military sabotage; industrial action; actions against the deployment of labour, etc. Fortunately, the history of women has not been forgotten. It was mainly the illegal newspaper Waarheid around which the communist resistance formed. The illegal newspaper therefore plays a central role in this book, which belongs in every library.

What has always surprised me is that Mrs Versteeg (Aunt Mieke), my mother and my brother (Fred) were released relatively quickly, a few months after the SD had struck in Eerbeek.
Incidentally, the latter two were both very tight-lipped about that period later on.
We know that Aunt Mieke provided shelter to many more people in hiding for longer or shorter periods in the Calluna Alba villa. I do not know whether the Germans were aware of this.
I have therefore sometimes wondered whether the full confessions of Lou Jansen and Jan Dieters were the price for the release of Aunt Mieke, my mother and Fred. But these are only guesses.

Jo and Elske de Smit, mentioned in Galesloot’s book, were two members of the CPN with whom my parents were good friends before the war. They lived on Westlandgracht in Amsterdam West.
I can still remember that before the war, my little brother and I would sometimes visit an address on that canal with my mother in the afternoon. At the time, it was on the outskirts of the city. Behind it were meadows. It is quite possible that we were visiting the de Smit family.
If I remember correctly, we left their house at the end of July – after spending the night there – and went to Appelscha in Friesland.
Of the trio de Groot-Dieters-Jansen, Lou Jansen was the contact person for Amsterdam. When he stayed in Amsterdam for a few days during the period in hiding, he ‘lodged’ with the de Smit family on Westlandgracht.
This is described in Stutje’s book and also in the book by Galesloot and Legêne. As the war progressed, he must have looked increasingly worse for wear as a result of the constant pressure he was under. I can still remember how he had to take bismuth for his stomach problems.

After the 1950s, Jansen’s name was no longer mentioned as the inspiration behind the organization of the February Strike. He was not mentioned during the annual commemoration.

Proposals to commemorate him with a memorial plaque in the Town Hall followed. On the initiative of Harry Homma of the February Strike Committee, contact was made with Councillor Groot Wassink. The request to name a room in the Stopera after Lou Jansen was no longer feasible because all the rooms in the Stopera had already been allocated. The municipality then opted for the Council Chamber on Bos en Lommerplein.
It took a few months, but on 12 October 2021, the naming was made official with the unveiling of a plaque in the presence of family and other acquaintances.

WEST DISTRICT
Naming of the Council Chamber after Louis Jansen

Dear guests,

We are gathered here to officially rename the Council Chamber of this building after Louis (Lou) Jansen.
First of all, I would like to thank Harrij Homma, who initiated this project.

I would also like to thank the councillor and the gentlemen from the borough who made this possible. Thank you, thank you.

Eighty-one years ago, Bos en Lommerplein was a barren expanse of reclaimed land. I lived at 255 Mercatorstraat, on the second floor, which at the time was pretty much on the outskirts of the city.
At the front of our house, we looked out onto a market garden. To the right was the first part of Erasmus Park, behind which houses were under construction.

I remember walking there with my father and mother several times on Sundays. To look at the new buildings. To see if there were any houses larger than ours on Mercatorstraat.

And perhaps they would have ended up renting a four or five-room house there, if the Germans hadn’t thrown a spanner in the works. After a short war of about five days, they occupied our country in May 1940.