World War II

On May 10, 1940, Nazi Germany invaded the neutral Netherlands. Despite desperate resistance, the Dutch army capitulated after only five days — after the Luftwaffe reduced the center of Rotterdam to rubble on May 14 (over 800 dead, 80,000 homeless, the entire city center destroyed). It was one of the first large-scale bombings of a city in the war.

Occupation and Holocaust

The five-year occupation was brutal. Nowhere in Western Europe was the Holocaust as devastating as in the Netherlands: Of the approximately 140,000 Dutch Jews, over 100,000 were murdered — 75% of the Jewish population, the highest rate in Western Europe. Anne Frank's diary is the most famous testimony of this tragedy, but there are thousands of other stories.

The Hunger Winter of 1944/45 was the last catastrophe: After the failed liberation attempt at Arnhem (Operation Market Garden, September 1944), the western Netherlands starved. Over 20,000 people died of hunger and cold. Tulip bulbs and sugar beets became food.

Liberation and Reconstruction

On May 5, 1945, the Netherlands was liberated — mainly by Canadian troops, to whom the Dutch remain grateful to this day. May 5 is a national holiday (Bevrijdingsdag). The reconstruction was remarkable: Rotterdam decided not to reconstruct but to build anew in a modern and bold way — a decision that made the city the architecture capital of Europe.