In February 2013, a documentary shown on Dutch television triggered a prolonged debate on how to deal with antisemitism. The programme featured a Turkish-Dutch youngster stating loud and clear that he hated Jews. The statements made in the programme were a shock for many. ‘This most unadulterated antisemitism ever seen on Dutch television’, as one commentator called it, became the subject of commentary and parliamentary questions and provoked international reactions as fragments of the footage went global on YouTube.

The explicit anti-Jewish statements shown in the documentary Onbevoegd Gezag [Unauthorised Authority] were made in reaction to a reading from the Diary of Anne Frank, organised by a youth worker who lived in the city of Arnhem. He had started reading the diary with local pupils as a panacea against the antisemitism he had encountered in his environment. But in this case reading about the persecution of the Jews did not prevent youngsters from expressing their antipathy of Jews. On the contrary, the youngster who expressed his hatred of Jews said that by killing them Hitler had done a good thing. For some people this made the statements even more incomprehensible. If knowledge of the Holocaust did not help against antisemitism, what would?

An explanation for the lack of effect of Holocaust education on these youngsters was found in their background. The four boys featured in the documentary all came from Turkish families and were, presumably, Muslim. As newcomers – or rather children of newcomers in Dutch society – migrants were, apparently, not fully aware of the historical experience of the Holocaust and would, therefore, cross the boundaries of what was acceptable to say about it. There was some surprise that the youngsters had a Turkish, and not Moroccan, background. Antisemitic incidents since the beginning of the Second Intifada in autumn 2000 had led to an identification of antisemitism with Muslims, migrants and Moroccans. So far, the Turkish-Dutch had not been associated with antisemitism in the same way that Moroccan-Dutch youngsters had.

This raised the question whether the antisemitism which now manifested itself among Turkish-Dutch youth was a new phenomenon or, alternatively, if it had been there all along without being recognised or challenged.