The history of the Jews in the Netherlands began largely in the 16th century when they began to settle in Amsterdam and other cities. It has continued to the present. During the occupation of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany in May 1940, the Jewish community was severely persecuted. The area now known as the Netherlands was once part of the Spanish Empire but in 1581, the Northern Dutch provinces declared independence. A principal motive was the wish to practice Protestant Christianity, then forbidden under Spanish rule. Religious tolerance was effectively an important constitutional element of the newly independent state. This inevitably attracted the attention of Jews who were religiously oppressed in different parts of the world. In pursuit of religious freedoms, many Jews migrated to the Netherlands where they flourished. During the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in World War II, approximately 75 percent of the Jewish population of the Netherlands was murdered in the Holocaust through deportation to concentration and extermination camps. History of Jews in the Netherlands Early history It was likely that the earliest Jews arrived in the "Low Countries", present-day Belgium and the Netherlands, during the Roman conquest early in the common era. Little is known about these early settlers, other than they were not very numerous. For some time, the Jewish presence consisted of, at most, small isolated communities and scattered families. Reliable documentary evidence dates only from the 1100s; for several centuries, the record reflects that the Jews were persecuted within the region and expelled on a regular basis. Early sources from the 11th and 12th centuries mention official debates or disputations between Christians and Jews, in which attempts were made to convince the Jews of the truth of Christianity and to try to convert them. They were documented in the other provinces at an earlier date, especially after their expulsion from France in 1321 and the persecutions in Hainaut and the Rhine provinces. The first Jews in the province of Gelderland were reported in 1325. Jews have been settled in Nijmegen, the oldest settlement, in Doesburg, Zutphen and in Arnhem since 1404. As of the 13th century, there are sources that indicate that Jews were living in Brabant and Limburg, mainly in cities such as Brussels, Leuven, Tienen and the jewishstreet of Maastricht (Dutch pronunciation: Jodenstraat (Maastricht)) from 1295 is another old proof of their existence. Sources from the 14th century also mention