A reconstruction of the size and composition of Jewish Holocaust survivors in the Netherlands, 1945

Compared to other countries that have suffered from the Nazioccupation, the destructive impact of the Holocaust on theJewish population has been particularly strong in the Netherlands. This paper gives a demographicreconstruction of the Jewish population in the Netherlands by the end of the war (1945),disaggregated by age and sex. The reconstruction is based on two approaches: a forwardprojection 1941–1945, starting from registration data supplemented by information onHolocaust losses; and a backward projection 1966–1945, starting from an enumerationof Halachic Jews carried out in 1966. The two approaches yieldtwo estimates that are comfortingly similar.