General work stoppage that broke out on 25 February 1941 in Amsterdam in response to the first major razzia (roundup).
During this razzia in Amsterdam on 22 and 23 February more than 400 Jewish men were arrested. It was a retaliation measure for the death of an NSB member who died of his wounds as a result of a scuffle that was provoked by the NSB in a Jewish quarter of Amsterdam. The Jewish men who were arrested were sent to the Schoorl camp and from there to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. After several months they were transferred to the Mauthausen concentration camp.
The Communist Party called a strike. On 25 February trams did not leave the depot, which prevented many workers from reaching their jobs. Shops, offices, and factories remained closed as a protest against the brutal anti-Semitism of the German occupiers. The strike spread to other cities, including Haarlem, Hilversum, Utrecht, and the towns in the Zaan district. On the second day of the strike the occupying forces organised measures to suppress the uprising, which resulted in nine deaths and dozens of wounded persons. In the days that followed, hundreds of strikers were arrested. Most were released after a few weeks. Three well-known communists were sentenced to death. They were executed together with fifteen members of the Geuzengroep resistance movement. The poet Jan Campert (1902-1943) wrote about them in his poem An Ode to Eighteen Deaths.
The February Strike was the only massive, public protest against Jewish persecution in the entire occupied Europe. The punitive reprisal meted by the occupying forces instilled tremendous fear and there were no recurrences of the strike.
Additional information can be found on: februaristaking.nl.