Auction 68 Jewish and Israeli History and Culture
Sep 19, 2019 (Your local time)
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 8 Ramban St, Jerusalem.
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LOT 222:

An Essay about the Origins of the Portuguese Jewish Community of the Netherlands – Printed during the German ...

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An Essay about the Origins of the Portuguese Jewish Community of the Netherlands – Printed during the German Occupation in World War II, in Order to Prove the Non-Jewish Origin of the Community – The Netherlands, 1942
Die Herkunft der sogenannten portugiesischen Juden [The Origins of Those Known as Portuguese Jews], a typewritten, mimeographed booklet, [by Percy Cohen Henriquez]. [The Netherlands, ca. 1942]. German.
This booklet was printed in the midst of World War II, and it contains a detailed research about the allegedly non-Jewish origin of the Portuguese community in the Netherlands (in order to legitimize it in the eyes of the Nazis). The research addresses the origins of the Jewish community in Spain, the extensive scope of conversion to Judaism among the Christian and Muslim population of Spain in early times, the mixed marriages of the converso community after the rise of the Inquisition and the separate social status of the community in the Netherlands. The composition contains many excerpts and quotations by various scholars and historians (the author specifically notes that they are not Jewish) and includes two addendums: a legal opinion by the Dutch lawyer Jacob Maarten van Bemmelen (dated 19.3.1942) and an anthropological report by the Dutch neurologist Ariëns Kappers, demonstrating that the skulls of Portuguese Jews differ from those of Ashkenazic Jews.
The name of the author is not mentioned in the report; however, presumably, he is the Jewish engineer Percy Cohen Henriquez (1909-2000), born in Curaçao, who was staying in the Netherlands during the war and survived since he was not registered as a Jew.
The Portuguese community was one of the most important and ancient Jewish communities in the Netherlands. Due to the state of war between the Netherlands and the true country of origin of the community – Spain, the Jews preferred to call themselves by the name of the neighboring country – Portugal. Over the years, several of the leading rabbis and Jewish intellectuals of Modern history grew up in the community, among them are Rabbi Shlomo di Oliveira, Saul Levi Morteira, Baruch Spinoza and many others.
During World War II, the Germans practiced a unique policy in the occupied Netherlands, enabling the Jews to rebut being registered as Jews. The person responsible for their registration in Hague, the Righteous among Nations, Hans Georg Calmeyer (1903-1972), took advantage of this "breach" of the German law, and changed the registration of thousands from "Jewish" to "half-Jewish". The booklet before us was published as part of these efforts and was possibly submitted to Calmeyer, who in 1942 (the year the booklet was published) composed a list of 370 Jews of "pure" Spanish origin who should be exempted from the Nazi race laws.
34 pp, approx. 33 cm. Good condition. Minor blemishes. Stains on cover. Tears to spine and an open tear to one corner of the cover.
See: Did the Nazis Think that Sephardim were Jews? By Bernd Rother (in Divrei HaCongress Hashnem Assar LeMada'ei HaYahadut, Jerusalem: Magnes, 2001. pp. 105-113).

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