The Hague (Den Haag or ‘s-Gravenshage), though not the capital of the Netherlands, is the seat of the Dutch government. Consequently, it also became home to the central occupational administration of the Nazi government during World War II.

The Hague had been home to a large Jewish community of 10,000 people, both Sephardim and Ashkenazim, before the Holocaust. As many as 2,000 German Jews, fleeing the Nazi government established in Germany in 1933, resettled in Scheveningen, the seaside resort town next to The Hague. It is said that the name of the town is one of the most difficult words for a non-native Dutch speaker to pronounce, and thus was used as a password for Resistance fighters during the war (even the Germans, who could approximate a Dutch accent, had trouble pronouncing “Scheveningen”). The Nazi government feared that these Jewish immigrants would use The Hague’s proximity to the coast to try to escape from mainland Europe. As such, all Jews in the coastal Netherlands who were not Dutch citizens were evacuated to inland areas.

Approximately 80% of the Jewish community in The Hague were deported during the war, most of whom were killed. Of the roughly 2,000 who were not deported, most survived in hiding. Today, only 300 Jews live in the Hague.

The prison in Scheveningen was used to hold Jews to be deported and Dutch resistors caught by the Nazis. It earned the nickname “Oranje Hotel” (the color orange symbolizes loyalty to the Dutch crown, the House of Orange). Today that prison holds indicted war-criminals being tried by the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.