Preparations for the annihilation of Dutch Jewry were made in late 1941 when the German authorities informed the Jewish leadership that "unemployed Jews" would be sent to labor camps. The first deportation in the Netherlands took place on January 14, 1942, as part of a plan to make the country Judenrein. It began in the town of Zandam: Jews with Dutch citizenship were ordered to move to Amsterdam, and alien Jews were transported to the Westerbork camp.
