Certainly, the [Axis authorities] were well aware of the Rivierenbuurt’s disproportionately large Jewish population from the outset of the Occupation. This awareness took on a greater relevance after February 1941, when a ghetto was imposed in the Jodenhoek (‘Jewish Corner’), the traditional centre of Jewish settlement of Amsterdam.

While this ghetto had been based on the principles of eastern European paradigms, it proved to be untenable because the [Axis authorities] could not seal in its Jewish population, due to the high proportion of [gentiles] living there who needed to continue to interact with the rest of the city.

Thus, by the middle of 1941, the [Axis authorities] alighted upon an alternative approach that could help achieve their aim by harnessing existing local conditions as they pertained specifically to Amsterdam. Henceforth, three discrete Jodenwijken (‘Jewish Districts’), took the place of the ghetto, of which the Rivierenbuurt was by far the largest.

The [Axis] called this model of containment a ‘lockeres Ghetto’ (slack ghetto), an unenclosed district that allowed resident [gentiles], and Jews, to continue to live alongside each other. In consequence, the physical barriers of the ghetto were rendered superfluous, thereby allowing the Rivierenbuurt to remain open and accessible.

Instead, the activities and movements of Jews were controlled by means of an extraordinarily wide range of persecutory measures, of which personal registration, restricted employment, travel permits and the wearing of the ‘Jewish Star’ for identification purposes were but a few.

If the [Axis authorities] did not explicitly recognize the advantages of the spatial conditions that already existed in the Rivierenbuurt before the mass deportations of the Jews began in July 1942, they soon exploited their benefits. Able to round up their Jewish victims in efficient operations with minimal resources, they could send them rapidly to local assembly points and for onward transportation to almost certain death in the extermination camps at Auschwitz‐Birkenau and Sobibór.

This was achieved, in the first instance, by being able to deploy police during razzias (raids for rounding up Jews) along the grand avenues of the Rivierenbuurt, the design of which was clearly derived from authoritarian precedents, as seen in Paris, St. Petersburg or Imperial Rome (see photo below).

Secondly, the boundaries of the Rivierenbuurt delineated by the River Amstel and canals were capable of being cut off from the surrounding city by raising the bridges, as occurred, for example, without warning, in a major dawn razzia on 20 June 1943. [The Axis rounded up 5,550 Jews in Amsterdam for deportation to occupied Poland.]

Thirdly, the regimented grid‐like planning of the secondary side streets created a net during razzias, the mesh of which could be enlarged or reduced in size as required to isolate specific localities where Jews lived.

Rooseveltlaan [south end], Rivierenbuurt. Source: David Kann, 16 September 2016

In other circumstances, inherent flaws in the progressive architectural design would also have been taken for granted by their designers and residents, yet were capable of disclosing further opportunities for the [Axis]. This came about because four and five storey residential blocks with long frontages, designed for sustaining intensive housing densities, extended from one street corner to another.

Each of these contained tightly packed clusters of spacious apartments in which large numbers of people were billeted when the [Axis] forced Jews from all parts of the country to move to the Rivierenbuurt, which, in effect, rendered it a large detention camp in all but name, pending their future deportation to the camps.

Furthermore, awkward and narrow, steep staircases, accessed by open, communal entrance archways, led from the street to upper floors without alternative escape routes. Panicked Jews were trapped and could not escape being caught (see photo below).

Access staircase at Roerstraat 15 and 17, Rivierenbuurt. Source: David Kann, 26 October 2007.

The buildings, streets and waterways of the Rivierenbuurt might have appeared well‐ordered and beneficial for the well‐being of their residents in peacetime. However, despite the local death rate being similar to the rest of the country, it is evident that the existing built environment of the district could be readily subverted by the [Axis authorities] for more efficient means of conducting their persecution of its Jews.

In the end, when the Rivierenbuurt was finally liberated on the last day of the war in Europe on 8 May 1945, almost no Jews survived, apart from the very few that had managed to hide.