Benjamin Aäron Sijes, born on 12 January 1908 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, was a Dutch Jewish historian who played a crucial role in the postwar historiography of the German occupation of the Netherlands. He became one of the leading researchers at the Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (RIOD, later Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies [NIOD]), where he eventually served as deputy director. Sijes gained recognition for a trilogy of landmark studies on the Nazi occupation, published in 1951, 1954 and 1966.1De razzia van Rotterdam. The Hague: Staatsuitgeverij, 1951; De Februaristaking. The Hague: Staatsuitgeverij, 1954; De arbeidsinzet: de gedwongen arbeid van Nederlanders in Duitsland, 1940–1945. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1966.
Interviews with Roma and Sinti Survivors
In 1963, while accompanying Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal (1908–2005) during a visit to Amsterdam, his encounter with a Romani woman sparked his interest in the history of the persecution of the Sinti and Roma. From the late 1960s onwards, he undertook systematic research on the subject, assisted by five student researchers who interviewed Romani survivors throughout the Netherlands. These interview reports are preserved in the NIOD archives.
Pioneering Study in 1979
The project culminated in 1979 in the publication of Vervolging van zigeuners in Nederland, 1940–1945 [The Persecution of Gypsies in the Netherlands, 1940–1945]. It was the first systematic study of its kind and became the standard reference on the persecution of Sinti and Roma in Europe. At the book’s launch, Roma survivor Koos ‘Koka’ Petalo (1942–1996) criticised the belated recognition of the persecution and the difficulties researchers faced in building trust with survivors. His intervention underscored the importance of oral history and the need for a survivor-centred perspective.
The work also drew academic critique. Colonel Antonius Franciscus van Velsen (1892–1982), a Dutch resistance fighter, Auschwitz survivor, and later military historian, criticised Sijes’ reliance on Danuta Czech’s (1922–2004) ‘Auschwitz Chronicle’, which had been published in Polish since 1958. Van Velsen provided corrections to Czech’s chronology, but Sijes did not adopt them and continued to use Czech as his primary reference.
Despite such criticisms, Sijes’ study represented a breakthrough. The Netherlands was the first country where the wartime persecution of Sinti and Roma was thoroughly investigated by a leading war historian. Sijes placed the Dutch case in a broader European context and demonstrated that Dutch government policies toward ‘Gypsies’ and caravan dwellers had changed little after 1945, a conclusion that provoked debate.
