ABSTRACT
The Nazi takeover in Germany in early 1933 and the ever-worsening anti-Jewish campaign caused anxiety in Holland. Jewish and other (political) refugees tried to get asylum in Holland or enter the country illegally. Many assumed that Germany would not violate Holland’s neutrality. The first Jewish refugee children arrived at the orphanage in Leiden in April 1933. In total some 30 refugee children were taken in by the orphanage in Leiden between 1933 and 1940. Those refugees who were still in Holland on 15th March 1940 found themselves caught under the same Nazi regime they had tried to escape from.
