Episode list

Classical studies professor David Cohen accepts when his tycoon friend asks him to co-chair the 'Jewish Council' installed by the Beaufträgter (Nazi commissioner) for Amsterdam to represent the Hebrew community, hoping to smooth things and prevent incidents, for starters handing in all arms. However hard-handed raids continue, sending 400 arbitrary young Jews to Mauthausen -the meaning on concentration camp dawns slowly- as they get blamed for any unrest in the city. The community gets divided whether to cooperate to avoid worse, or attempt futile resistance, like the communist-inspired general strike. The SS Hauptsturmbannführer hold stem responsible, while dropping some gentleman attitude. Cohen's nurse daughter Virrie's close friend Emil Wertheim was arrested by NSB (Dutch armed collaborator militia) without pretext and died in the Austrian camp, convincing her mother Cornelia and fiancee, law student Piet Meerburg, to join the resistance.

An inspection by SS superior Klaus Barbie forces the Amsterdam CO to act even tougher, humiliating Cohen and Asher, deciding the latter to resign from the council, which decides against disbanding, still hoping to prevent worse. The are ordered to publish a journal with all Nazi instructions, hoping to maintain order. The youth camp is formally transferred as a a transit camp for people to be deported, all Jews must buy and wear yellow David star insignia, distributed by the council, which enjoys immunity for its members and their families when ordered to compile full lists of people selected for deportation to Poland, allowed to choose a small number of 'indispensable' person allowed to remain in Amsterdam. Student Piet Meerburg leads a hideout ring and recruits Cohen's daughter Virrie to steal medication for their charges. Cogen's wife provocatively braves the ever more restrictive rules by buying and serving fish on Sabbath, causing a row, when Virrie learns of her aunt's adulterous relation with the professor.

Both presidents resume work in the Jewish Council, although the SS commander breaks all promises and enjoys openly humiliating and tormenting them, ordering the Amsterdam Jewry to turn over 'in consignment' all valuables and imposes a monthly maximum income of 250 guilders. Unlike Cohen, Asscher refuses to play the cynical game when a next raid no longer exempts the essential people and council staff, the commander hands him only 20 joker cards to save a handful. Although daughter Virginie 'Virrie' compromised the hospital by hiding a foundling baby with Pieter, David manages to save his daughter already on the train to Poland, only for her to scold him a yellow collaborator and hide gifted pupil Freddie after even his devoted teacher Samuel Polak is deported.

As previous deportations have halved the Jewish population, the Nazis decide to halve the Jewish council and its staff. Cohen has more trouble then ever to convince his colleagues they must make horrible choices to decide which 7000 of them are spared once more, hoping for the war to end. The childcare center is closed down, Pieter and Verrie can only hide a few children, ever more staffers resign desperately. Ultimately, the Nazis hold out long enough to order everyone deported to Polish concentration camps, including the Cohen family.

After the war, some camp survivors have emigrated to Israel or the US, other return to Amsterdam, like the Cohens. returning isn't easy, with legal rules dragging inheritances over ten year without regular proof of dates of deaths and reluctance to return items given in informal consignment. It's even worse for the Cohens, whose name is tainted by Jewish 'honor council' and Dutch legal procedures after charges of collaboration against the members and staff of the council, but the arrested professor puts up a convincing defense, only Verrie can't cope with the consequences of her father's impossible choices, wrongly blaming him for the children she couldn't save.