Tomorrow morning they'll start the so called Razzia of Rotterdam. The aim is to capture and deport ALL man aged between 17 and 40 years. This Razzia will take two day's: 10 and 11 November. The reason for this razzia, officially , is that they are needed for
"arbeid-einsatz" , the nazi forced labour program. However , it later turned out there was not much work for those men ,as most factory's and such where bombed out of existance.
It is believed now that the allied victory at the Westerschelde fuelled german fears of an uprising.
Due to the surprise and , for the Netherlands, unprecedented scale,
around 52.000 men of the 70.000 present where captured and deported.
Several people who tried to hide , or later escape during transport, where shot.
After the war it turned out that , at least, 410 people who where caught in this razzia had died .
In the coming months there will be several more of these razzias in other towns but , as people where now aware of these, many men went into hiding outside major towns and the germans wouldn't succeed ever again to caputre
such a large percentage of people.
Many of those captured died, estimates range from ca 24000 to 29000.
The exact number can't be determent because several resistance groups raided the administration centre's where the citizens where registered.
The Netherlands had
( and still have, hurray
![Sick :sick:](./images/smilies/icon_bad.gif)
After the war people wanted this registration to be , at least, reduced but the gouvernement refused , as it knew it was a great means of control. Anyone who wants anything done in the Netherlands needs to be in this registration.But that's not the point of this series
![Off Topic :offtopic:](./images/smilies/icon_offtopic.gif)