On 8 May 1943, the Nazis in the Netherlands announced the introduction of labour deployment (Arbeitseinsatz) for all Dutch men aged 18 to 35. This meant that they would be forced to work in Germany. The Dutch were required to show up and report for deployment. There were too few Germans left to do the work, because most of them had been drafted.
The Nazis had expected to recruit 170,000 workers in the Netherlands, but only 54,000 men registered. Most Dutch men did not want to work for the enemy. Many of them went into hiding, others arranged documents proving that they were incapacitated for work, or could not be missed at home or at work.
The Germans turned up the heat by increasing the target group to include all men aged 17 to 40 and by holding raids. Any man walking in the street was liable to be arrested and taken to Germany. The Germans eventually succeeded in deploying a quarter of a million Dutch men.
The most notorious raid took place in Rotterdam. On 10 and 11 November 1944, 52,000 men were arrested throughout the city.
Work in Germany was often hard. The food was bad and the workers were treated poorly. It was dangerous, too, because the Allies were bombing the factories in order to disrupt the German war production. Still, some of the men did not have a hard time, and they enjoyed the freedom of being away from home.
