A wave of anti-Jewish sentiment is sweeping across the Netherlands. This is a frightening trend if you consider that the Netherlands not only housed concentration camps in World War ii but also collaborated with the Nazis. Anti-Semitism is on the rise—and you need to take notice.

According to a study by the Jewish Claims Conference published in January, 12 percent of 2,000 Dutch respondents believe the Holocaust was a myth or exaggerated. For those born after 1980, this figure increased to nearly a quarter (23 percent). These are the highest values that have ever been measured in the Netherlands. Fifty-four percent of respondents said they were unaware that 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, and 37 percent of those born after 1980 believe fewer than 2 million Jews died.

The Netherlands is one of six countries surveyed by the Claims Conference. The others were Austria, Canada, France, Britain and the United States.

Survey after survey, we continue to witness a decline in Holocaust knowledge and awareness. Equally disturbing is the trend towards Holocaust denial and distortion. To address this trend, we must put a greater focus on Holocaust education in our schools globally. If we do not, denial will soon outweigh knowledge, and future generations will have no exposure to the critical lessons of the Holocaust.
—Gideon Taylor, Claims Conference president

Naomi Mestrum, director of the Center for Information and Documentation Israel, is concerned about the rise of anti-Semitic incidents in the Netherlands. Her organization reported 183 cases, excluding online abuse, in 2021, an astonishing 36 percent increase from the year before. “People’s awareness continues to decline. I’m especially worried about a lack of historical awareness and the seriousness of anti-Semitism,” Mestrum said. According to a more recent survey in February, 40 percent of Dutch school teachers report witnessing at least one anti-Semitic incident in the past year.

The Netherlands has long believed it was exemplary in coming to terms with the past. Every year on May 4, Remembrance Day is observed to pay tribute to all Dutch victims of war, including the 102,000 who were deported to gas chambers. The topic of the Holocaust is also compulsory in Dutch schools. Nevertheless, it seems fewer and fewer young people are being reached.

Anti-Semitic abuse has become especially entangled in the Dutch soccer culture. Most young people in the Netherlands love soccer and easily become caught up in the anti-Jewish culture. On May 6, police in Amsterdam arrested 154 soccer fans for singing anti-Semitic chants on the train while on the way to a soccer match. The fans were supporters of AZ Alkmaar; they were going to see their team play Ajax, a team with roots in a historically Jewish area of Amsterdam.

Today, only a small community of about 15,000 Jews is left in Amsterdam, home of the famous Anne Frank. Her diary has been read by students around the world. It is the sobering account of a young Jewish girl whose family sought refuge in the Netherlands as Jews in Germany came under increasing persecution. Tragically, the Netherlands surrendered to Germany in World War ii, and Anne Frank died in a concentration camp.

The Anne Frank House is a memorial museum, but it has recently become the focus of scoffers and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

In February, a text alluding to one of these conspiracy theories was projected onto the Anne Frank House. The projected message read “Anne Frank, inventor of the ballpoint pen,” referring to claims that the diary was written with a type of pen that came into use only after the war. Incidents like this have become commonplace in the Netherlands, and a sign of the historical ignorance and deceit of our time.

People try to discredit the historic account of Anne Frank, but she was just one of many Jews killed. Proportionally, the Netherlands had the greatest number of Jewish victims in Western Europe. Every third Jew in the Netherlands was murdered, while percentages in other countries were much lower. This is largely because many Dutch officers collaborated with the Nazis. Before the war, the Netherlands was seen as a safe haven for Jews, but it turned into a deadly trap.

Researchers have trouble understanding the rise of anti-Semitism. That’s because the problem is spiritual in nature. The Bible is clear that the ultimate source of all hatred and murder is Satan the devil (John 8:44; 2 Corinthians 4:4). In World War ii, Satan used Nazi Germany to stir up fanatical hatred for the Jews which caused the death of 6 million Jews.

In the July 2023 Philadelphia Trumpet issue, editor in chief Gerald Flurry explained that the Bible prophesies of seven resurrections of the Holy Roman Empire. The German Reich under Adolf Hitler was the sixth. The seventh resurrection, he noted will, under the influence of Satan the devil, cause even more destruction than Hitler did. The July 2023 Trumpet is centered around the 10 European kings now uniting under Germany as prophesied in Revelation 17. A specific article about the Netherlands explains that recent events and Bible prophecy indicate that the Netherlands will soon work closely with Germany, producing one of these 10 kings.

The Netherlands—possibly as part of a small group of related nations—will produce one of the 10 kings of the new Holy Roman Empire. It has worked extremely closely with Germany, to the point that it has handed over the command of its entire army to the German Army.

In March, the Netherlands subordinated its last combat brigade to Germany. Those who remember the Netherlands’ history of collaboration with the Nazis should be greatly sobered by these events. (To learn more, read “Ten Kings: The Netherlands.”)

Revelation 17 says these prophesied 10 kings have “one mind” (verse 13). Other prophecies show how their thinking aligns. Notice a prophecy in Jeremiah 1:14-15: “Then the Lord said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. For, lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the Lord; and they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah.”

Concerning these verses Mr. Flurry notes in Jeremiah and the Greatest Vision in the Bible:

Jeremiah had the most inspiring vision in the Bible, but he also had a warning about the worst suffering ever on Earth about to afflict Israel—mainly America, the British peoples and the Jews. … A huge, seething, boiling pot will spill over onto Israel. This is a picture of indescribable disaster and suffering—an expression of God’s extreme wrath over our sins! How many different horror pictures do we see about this subject in Bible prophecy? There must be more than a hundred. It is time for Israel to repent. This mega-disaster is almost upon us!

One thing all “10 kings,” or “families of the kingdoms of the north,” have in common is a Satan-inspired hatred for Israel. Unless the nations of Israel repent, anti-Semitism in Germany and the Netherlands will only increase. God prophesies He will use the hatred boiling in Europe today to punish His people. But He also promises to end this hatred once mankind has learned its lesson.

Notice the tremendous hope tied to these 10 kings: “These shall make war with the Lamb [Jesus Christ], and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful” (Revelation 17:14). This destructive European superpower will fight Jesus Christ, but it will lose. Then Christ will end murder, hatred and anti-Semitism forever!