Surviving the holocaust: socio-demographic differences among Amsterdam Jews

This study determined the victimisation rate among Amsterdam Jews and sociodemographic differences in surviving the Holocaust. After linking a registration list of over 77,000 Jewish inhabitants in 1941 to post-war lists of Jewish victims and survivors, the victimisation rate lies between 74.3% and 75.3%. Differences in survival chances and risk of being killed are examined by using multivariable logistic and Cox regression analyses. While male Jews had a reduced risk of death, in the end their survival chances hardly differed from females. Though Jews aged 6-14 and 31-50 initially had a lower risk of death, in the end compared with Jews aged 15-30 they had lower survival chances, just as Jews aged 50+. For Jews aged 0-5 it was the other way around. Immigrants showed better survival chances than native Jews. German Jews showed better survival chances than Dutch Jews, but Polish and other Jewish nationals showed highest survival chances. Jews who had abandoned Judaism had better survival chances than Jews belonging to an Israelite congregation. Divorced, widowed and unmarried adult Jews had better survival chances than married Jews and their children; Jews married to non-Jews, however, had one of the highest survival chances. Jews in the two highest social classes had better survival chances than jobless Jews. These findings indicate that survival was not random but related to sociodemographic characteristics. This sheds light on demographic consequences of conflict and violence: Nazi persecution reduced the Amsterdam Jewish community drastically, and sociodemographic differences in survival impacted the post-war Jewish population structure.