D-Day 2 Essay, Research Paper

D-Day: On June 6, 1944 it came at last. What all occupied Europe had long been

waiting and praying for: the Allied invasion. In London Pieter Gerbrandy, the man who

become Prime Minister, made a speech to the Dutch people on Radio Oranje. And for

his part, Anton Mussert, Leider of the Dutch people, sent a telegram to Adolph Hitler,

Fuehrer of the German people, reaffirming his eternal loyalty. Intense fighting would last

for many weeks in Normandy.

Meanwhile, the situation in occupied Holland continued to deteriorate. Food–what there

was of it–was dismal. In September, 1943–nearly one year earlier–the Nazis in Holland

could gleefully announce to Berlin the country to be certifiably Judenrein, “free of Jews.”

They had managed to deport nearly 100,000 Jews to the death camps in Poland.

Virtually the only Jews now remaining in Holland were the thousands of them who had

managed to go into hiding. Tracking down these hidden Jews continued to be a major

Gestapo mission. Early in August, and acting upon a tip which had come their way, the

Gestapo found and arrested eight Jews who had been hiding in an Amsterdam

warehouse. This group of Jews whose youngest member was the 15 year old Anne

Frank, were immediately taken to Gestapo headquarters. From there they were sent to

the Dutch concentration camp Westerbork. They would remain there for some four

weeks.

After D-Day the Dutch resistance movement was growing ever bolder. Some in the

Resistance were taking now to singling out prominent Nazis and their Dutch

sympathizers for assassination. Nothing exists in a vacuum; as Dutch resistance

become stronger, German counter-measures became ever more brutal. For every

German murdered several Dutchmen would be picked up shot in his place. But such

measures only stiffened the resolve of the resistance all the mo