Hajo Meyer Dutch physicist and political activist Date of Birth: 12.08.1924 Country: Netherlands

1. Early Life
2. Holocaust Experience
3. Post-Holocaust
4. Later Career and Political Activism
5. Accusation of Anti-Semitism
6. Death

Early Life

Born in Bielefeld, Germany to Therese (Melchior) and Gustav Meyer, a notary who fought in World War I, Heddo Meyer was Jewish. At the age of 14, Meyer's parents sent him away from Nazi Germany to the Netherlands as part of a Kindertransport on January 4, 1939, leaving him on his own in Holland. Their decision came after Hadjo was no longer allowed to attend school after Kristallnacht. His parents were driven by the motto: "We do not love our children to death" ("bei uns gibt es keine Affenliebe").

Holocaust Experience

Meyer went into hiding in 1943 but was arrested a year later and spent ten months in Auschwitz. After Auschwitz, he vowed never to speak German again—a rule he broke at a scientific conference in Amsterdam after the war when asked to speak on a topic similar to one Hermann Haken was discussing. His parents were initially deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943, and after his father died of disease on May 15, 1944, it was decided that there was no longer any reason to keep his widow Therese there and she would be deported to Auschwitz. She hid a cyanide capsule in a loaf of bread and committed suicide, knowing there was no chance of survival there. His wartime correspondence with his parents in hiding has been published. His older brother Alfred's autobiography also recounts their experiences during the war.

Post-Holocaust

After the war, Meyer returned to the Netherlands and studied theoretical physics. He eventually became director of Philips Physical Laboratory (NatLab). Upon retirement, he took woodworking classes and built violins and violas.

Later Career and Political Activism

In his later years, Meyer became politically active, including as a director of the organization Other Jewish Voice. In 2003, he wrote "Het einde van het Jodendom" ("The End of Judaism"), in which he accused Israel of abusing the Holocaust to justify crimes against Palestinians. He reportedly used phrases in the book such as "Israeli Wehrmacht" and "Jewish SS," describing Israeli behavior as "identical" to "what was done with German Jews before the 'Final Solution,'" and arguing that Israel's behavior is the main cause of resurgent anti-Semitism after the war." He was a member of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.

Meyer repeatedly asserted that there are parallels between the Nazis' treatment of Jews, both in the lead-up to, but not including, the Holocaust, and Israel's dehumanization of the Palestinians. At a discussion organized and introduced by UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2010, Meyer reportedly compared Israel's actions against the people of Gaza to the mass murder of Jews during the Holocaust and likened the Israeli government to the government of Nazi Germany. During the talk, Meyer asserted that "Judaism in Israel has been replaced by the religion of the Holocaust, whose high priest is Elie Wiesel." He participated in the 2011 "Never Again – For Anybody" tour.

Meyer argued that there are different interpretations of Judaism, and that Jews should return to the principles of the Book of Leviticus and the rabbinic principles of figures like Hillel, eschewing the "Judaism of the end of days" that he identifies with the Book of Joshua and the positions of Abraham Isaac Kook, which he sees as having become the basis of Zionism.

Meyer argued that Zionism predated fascism, that Zionists and fascists have a history of collaboration, accusing Israel, among other things, of wanting to provoke anti-Semitism in the world to encourage more Jews to immigrate to Israel. Meyer expressed support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. In his last recorded interview, coinciding with the Israel–Gaza conflict in 2014, Meyer criticized Zionists as Nazi criminals, claimed that Germany's hatred toward Jews was less deep-seated than Israeli–Jewish hatred toward Palestinians, and condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statements that antiwar demonstrations were evidence of hatred for Israel. He was the first signatory to a statement of 250 Holocaust survivors and descendants of Holocaust survivors protesting that war.

Accusation of Anti-Semitism

In 2006, Henrik Broder was given a suspended sentence by a German court after he publicly accused anti-Zionists such as Meyer and Abraham Melzer [de] of "capacities for applied Judeophobia" ("Kapazitäten für angewandte Judäophobie"), comparing their views to Nazi measures. On appeal, a court largely acquitted Broder, stating that there is no such thing as "Jewish anti-Semitism."

Death

On August 23, 2014, Meyer died in his sleep in Heiloo, the Netherlands, at the age of 90.