One theory is that the Germans made use of the administrative organizations and Dutch police : " In their preparations for the extermination of the Jews living in The Netherlands , the Germans could count on the assistance of the greater part of the Dutch administrative infrastructure . The occupiers had to employ only a relatively limited number of their own personnel ; Dutch policemen rounded up the families to be sent to their deaths in Eastern Europe . Trains of the Dutch railways staffed by Dutch employees transported the Jews to camps in the Netherlands which were transit points to Auschwitz , Sobibor , and other death camps . " With respect to Dutch collaboration , Eichmann is quoted as saying " The transports run so smoothly that it is a pleasure to see . " During the first year of the occupation of the Netherlands , Jews , who were already registered on basis of their faith with the authorities ( just as Protestants , Catholics and others were ) , had to get a large " J " stamped in their IDs . Every Dutch resident had to declare whether or not they had " Jewish " roots . The Germans banned Jews from certain occupations and isolated them from public life . Starting in January 1942 , some Dutch Jews were forced to move to Amsterdam ; others were directly deported to Westerbork , a transit and concentration camp near the small village of Hooghalen . Westerbork was founded in 1939 by the Dutch government as the Central Refugee Camp to give shelter to Jews fleeing Nazi persecution following '' Kristallnacht '' . After the German occupation of the Netherlands in 1940 , it became a transit camp for Jews who were being deported to the Nazi concentration camps in Middle and Eastern Europe , and later to extermination camps . Nearly all the prisoners who left Westerbork for the east died in the Holocaust before the end of World War II
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
History of the Jews in the Netherlands