Emigration in the mid-1930s

Developments in Germany after 1933 triggered several waves of Jewish emigration from that country. In addition to the boycott of Jewish shopkeepers and liberal professionals already proclaimed in April 1933, the Nuremberg laws came into effect in September 1935. These so-called racial laws and subsequent regulations were intended to deprive Jews in Germany of all their rights. For instance, Germans were forbidden to marry Jews and German Jews were deprived of even more civil rights. In this way, the Nazis tried to make life so hard for Jews that they would 'voluntarily' leave Germany.

Between 1933 and 1937, a total of about 130,000 Jews left Nazi Germany. One of the famliles who left when life became increasingly difficult for Jews was the family of Herman van Pels. In 1937, they left Osnabrück in Germany and settled in Amsterdam.^[1] Several siblings of Hermann van Pels and his wife Auguste Röttgen, as well as their parents, also opted for safe refuge in the Netherlands.