THE DEPORTATION OF NETHERLANDS WORKMEN TO GERMANY [Pages 1-3].

The enlistment of working labourers took quite a different course. Many big and reasonably large business concerns, especially in the metal industry, were visited by German commissions who appointed workmen for deportation. This combing out of the concerns was called the "Sauckel-action", so named after its leader, who was charged with the appointment of foreign workmen in Germany.

The employers had to cancel the contracts with the appointed workmen temporarily, and the latter were forced to register at the labour offices, which then took care of the deportation under supervision of German "Fachberater".

Workmen who refused (relatively few) were prosecuted by the "Sicherheitsdienst" (SD). If captured by this service, they were mostly lodged for some time in one of the infamous prisoners camps in the Netherlands and eventually put to work in Germany.

In this prosecution the "Sicherheitsdienst" was supported by the German Police Service, which was connected with the labour offices, and was composed of members of the N.S.B. and the like.

At the end of April 1942 the deportation of working labourers started on a grand scale. Consequently in the months of May and June the number of deportees amounted to not less than 22,000, resp. 24,000 of which many were metal workers.

After that the action slackened somewhat, but in October 1942 another top was reached (2,600). After the big concerns, the smaller ones had, in their turn, to give up their personnel.

This changed in November 1944. The Germans then started a ruthless campaign for man-power, passing by the labour offices. Without warning, they lined off whole quarters of the towns, seized people in the streets or in the houses and deported them.

In Rotterdam and Schiedam where these raids (razzia's) took place on 10 and 11 November, the amount of people thus deported was estimated at 50,000 and 5,000 respectively.

In other places where the raids were held later, the numbers were much lower, because one was forewarned by the events. The exact figures are not known as they have never been published by the occupants.

The people thus seized were put to work partly in the Netherlands, partly in Germany.

The events of the war then took such a turn that further deportations did not take place. But still in the North and East of the country, many men, up to 60 years, were seized and forced to build defence works in the neighbourhood of their homes.