magister opus Ondergang (Demise – the Persecution and Eradication of Dutch Jewry). The work was reprinted six times during its first year, reaching the extraordinary print run of 150,000 – still today a record in the history of publishing in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, as a result of the lack of understanding, mental and physical health problems, too many missing relatives and general administrational difficulties, thousands of surviving Jews emigrated, or made aliyah to Mandatory Palestine, later Israel. Aliyah from the Netherlands initially surpassed that of any other Western nation. Israel is still home to some 6,000 Dutch Jews. Others emigrated to the United States. There was a high assimilation and intermarriage rate among those who stayed. As a result, the Jewish birth rate and organized community membership dropped. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, and the sharp increase of understanding for the shoah, relations with non-Jews were gradually friendly. The Jewish community received reparations payments from the Dutch government. Also reparations from Germany (aka 'Wiedergutmachung') started to trickle down into Dutch Jewish households. In 1947, two years after the end of the Second World War in the Netherlands, the total number of Jews as counted in the population census was just 14,346 (less than 10 percent of the count of 154,887 by the Nazi occupation force in 1941). Later, this number was adjusted by Jewish organisations to some 24,000 Jews living in the Netherlands in 1954. This was a huge loss compared to the number of Jews counted in 1941. This latter number was disputed, as the Nazi occupation force counted Jews on their classification of race. They included hundreds of Christians of Jewish heritage in the Nazi census. (According to Raul Hilberg, in his book, Perpetrators Victims Bystanders: the Jewish Catastrophe, 1933–1945, "the Netherlands ... [had] 1,572 Protestants [of Jewish heritage in 1943] ... There were also some 700 Catholic Jews living in the Netherlands [during the Nazi occupation] ...") In 1954, the Dutch Jews were recorded in the Netherlands as follows (province; number of Jews): Groningen – 242 Friesland – 155 Drenthe – 180 Overijssel – 945 Gelderland – 997 Utrecht – 848 North Holland – 15,446 (including 14,068 in Amsterdam) South Holland – 3,934 Zeeland – 59 North Brabant – 620 Limburg – 297 Total – 23,723 1960s and 1970s Because of the loss of 79% of the population, including many children and young people, the birth