March 29, 1943 The Netherlands
On 29 March 1943, an order issued by Hanns Albin Rauter was published in the newspapers: 'As of 10 April 1943, Jews are forbidden to stay in the provinces of Friesland, Drenthe, Groningen, Overijssel, Gelderland, Limburg, Noord-Brabant, and Zeeland. Jews who are currently in the aforementioned provinces must go to camp Vught.'
Rauter was the highest commander of the German SS and German police in the Netherlands.
Anne Frank wrote of the news in her diary: ‘Rauter, some German bigwig, recently gave a speech. "All Jews must be out of the German-occupied territories before July 1st. The province of Utrecht will be cleansed of Jews (as if they were cockroaches) between April 1st and May 1st, and the provinces of North and South Holland between May 1st and June 1st." These poor people are being shipped off to filthy slaughterhouses like a herd of sick and neglected cattle. But I'll say no more on the subject. My own thoughts give me nightmares!’
Rauter’s enthusiastic antisemitism was expressed clearly in his speech to Dutch SS members: 'In this way we want to expel the Jews, who are the source of all unrest and terror here, as quickly as possible from the general populace. It is no mean feat to have pulled 130,000 Jews, who would probably have grown to a million in one hundred years’ time, from the healthy German populace. We want to continue these measures relentlessly, because in doing so we are doing the Germanic people a service. That is why we will show no weakness in this matter.'