| Abstract | After 1945, the persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands has continuously been an issue of public contention and debate. Although it is not true that the persecution of the Jews has been repressed from public memory, for a long time Jewish survivors had little influence on the way their fate was publicly discussed. Not until the end of the 1960s were Jews able to voice their grief, as a result of a changing perspective on the relation between social injustice and mental disorders. Since then, the fate of the Jews has been recognized as the generic example of victimhood. As a result, the trauma Jewish survivors had to cope with became an asset other groups of victims tried to claim for themselves, to attract the same public attention and official benefits Jews had acquired. In recent years, the persecution of the Jews has become a 'national trauma' any one can suffer from. This has clouded our insight in the specific relations between victims, perpetrators and bystanders.
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