This book set out to review the integration of Jews into Dutch society before 1940, determine what was specifically Dutch, explain how different forms of Jewish resistance came into being in the Netherlands during the period of German occupation in the Second World War, and ask how integration and personal circumstances shaped that resistance. This is of course not the ultimate work on Jewish resistance in the Netherlands; it has been written to reinvigorate the debate about that subject and encourage further publications in order to clarify and broaden our understanding of Dutch and Jewish history. To achieve a deeper comprehension of Jewish resistance much more research remains to be done, for example, on the daily life of the Jews in the Netherlands under German occupation and on suicide as a form of Jewish resistance as highlighted earlier. So, this book cannot provide ready answers or make all contradictions consistent, and the conclusions drawn here can only be of a provisional nature.

As noted in the introduction of this book, the integration of Jews into Dutch society is subject of an on-going debate. Currently, public discussions about integration of minorities in modern societies tend to become polarised, often adopting a good or bad perspective. In this manner of polarisation, there is a similarity with the discussion about Jewish resistance shortly after the Second World War, as described in the introduction of this book, when history writing started as an emotional debate with entrenched notions, either over-emphasising the occurrence of Jewish resistance or denigrating those Jews who could or would not resist. However, the historiography eventually moved on to achieve a greater understanding of this subject through a more inclusive definition of Jewish resistance. The discourse about integration would also benefit from applying a more measured assessment of integration processes that gives all aspects of integration their comparative importance. The findings summarised below will hopefully contribute to that application.

By utilising a conceptual framework of integration and three yardsticks, this book has found that before the German invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940 Jews were becoming part of a changing Dutch society.