Abraham Asscher

Abraham Asscher ( born September 19, 1880 in Amsterdam, † 2 May 1950) was a Dutch diamond dealer, a Zionist politician and member of the Chamber of Commerce in Amsterdam and Chairman of the Joodse Raad in Amsterdam during the Second World War.

Life

Asscher was owner and director of the world-renowned diamond trading company and grinding Asscher in Amsterdam, where his brother Joseph also in 1908 the largest known diamond Cullinan divided. He was also a member of the Chamber of Commerce in Amsterdam. In the Northern Netherlands 1917-1940 he represented the Liberal Party in the Regional Council. Asscher was a Jewish Zionist functionaries and among others from 1932 Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Ashkenazic communities and also took over the Presidency of the Jewish community in Amsterdam. He was with David Cohen of the founders of a Jewish Coordinating Committee for Special Affairs and was its director until the dissolution of that institution in March 1941.

After the German Empire had occupied the Netherlands, Hermann Goering acquired in May 1940 in the diamond trade Asscher diamonds for 1.4 million guilders. As of February 12, 1941, Asscher, together with Cohen initiated by the German occupiers forced unification Joodse Raad first for Amsterdam and later for the whole of the Netherlands. After the gradual exclusion of Jews from public life, the Judenrat was also educational, welfare and basic questions, such as clothing and food procurement, busy. The Dutch Judenrat tried as many Jewish compatriots from deportation and thus to preserve the Holocaust, but this did not succeed through waivers. Asscher, as well as other members of the Joods Raad, was deported on September 23, 1943 as one of the last remaining Jews in the Netherlands over the Westerbork transit camp together with other Jewish diamond merchants in the concentration camp Bergen- Belsen.

Because of collaboration with the German occupiers, he was arrested on his return to the Netherlands and launched an investigation against him. After the closure of this case was followed in 1947 a trial before a Jewish community court, which found him guilty of collaboration guilty. Asscher, who justified his actions during the occupation in the process, the exercise of functions in Jewish offices was prohibited. Asscher, who completely withdrew from the Jewish community life, that judgment does not recognize. This also had the consequence that Asscher is not buried in a Jewish cemetery.