Lost City is something of a bombshell documentary as it tells the unknown story of the Amsterdam city tram and its role in the Holocaust.

I remember watching Occupied City nearly a year and a half ago in the blur of October 7. While that film displays who or what was where during the Nazi occupation of Germany, it didn’t really touch on the things discussed in this film. What this film does is blow the roof off in telling how the Amsterdam city tram collaborated with the Nazis. There were an estimated 77,000 Jews living in Amsterdam prior to the occupation. The trams took 43,000 Jews to the Amsterdam Central Station. The Nazis would oversee the deportation of 63,000 Jews in all. From there, the Nazis would force Jews into cattle cars in what would be the last departure out of Amsterdam for so many Jews. Many of them–58,000–would never return due to their murders at the death camps.

What filmmaker Willy Lindwer and author Guus Luijters give audiences is a journey through Amsterdam on the final tram ride. It’s especially somber knowing this is the original tram. Willy had been born in Amsterdam after his parents–Holocaust survivors–returned following the liberation. Guus, on the other hand, was born to non-Jewish parents during the occupation in 1943. He asks some really important questions. How can something like this have possibly happened. What was done to make it possible?

The Municipal Transport Company would hire a debt collector after the war because they never received payment from the Nazis for their role in deporting Anne Frank’s family. By this time, of course, the Nazis were no longer in the German government. This didn’t stop the transit authority from making money from the previous tram rides. It’s easily the biggest revelation of the film and somehow, I didn’t hear the news following last year’s March 2024 world premiere. Ir. W.B.I. Hofman was the director of the transport company. After the war, he appeared before a committee regarding his role during the February strike. He was cleared and returned to his post but he was never questioned about his cooperation in the deportation of Jews from Amsterdam. What a shame.

Like many cities in Europe, Amsterdam would never again be the same. When what few Jews did return home after liberation, they didn’t truly return home. Non-Jews moved into the Jewish quarter. And the homes that didn’t get new residents? They were demolished. But still, watching Willy and Gus ride the tram in the route that it took during the Holocaust does add another tragic layer to the history. Its route to the Amsterdam Central Station passes by the location of the Secret Annex. One of the final things that the Frank family saw on the way out of the city was their hiding place. Interestingly, neither Willy or Guus stopped to think about this before, only considering it while taking the tram ride.

Through interviews with Holocaust survivors and those in Amsterdam during the liberation, we get a sense of what their lives were like. Why did so many non-Jews look the way? They also describe their return to the city after the Holocaust. Upon their return, nobody knew where to go. Again, their homes were either demolished or people were living in them. And then there’s the question of their experiences during the war or Holocaust. Izak Salomons discusses a previous conversation with his grandson about his experiences.

It’s not in the film or it’s postscript but this film is a great example of a documentary forcing a city to reckon with its past during the Holocaust. We know about laws drawing controversy on both sides in another country. However, Amsterdam and GVB decided to take matters into its own hand. Honestly, reading about what they decided to do is bringing a tear to my eye. The donation to Jewish groups is meaningful in and of itself. For those who walk by the memorials at the train station, people can stop and think about how the transit authority was complicit in the Holocaust.

Lost City is both a revelatory and heartbreaking history of Amsterdam at the same time.

DIRECTOR: Willy Lindwer
SCREENWRITERS: Willy Lindwer, Guus Luijters
FEATURING: Willy Lindwer, Guus Luijters, Izak Salomons, Albert Joachimsthal, Wolf Korper, Mirjam Bolle-Levie, Jacques Springer, Fien Benninga-Warendorf, Ina Groenteman-Rosenthal, Ernst Verduin, Hans Stork, Virry de Vries Robles, Kees van Hattem, Elly Vleeschouwer-Blocq, Tini Jacobs-van Dulst, Constance Aletrino-Brands

Lost City held its US premiere during the 2025 New York Jewish Film Festival and its Southeast US premiere during the 2025 Miami Jewish Film Festival. Grade: 4/5

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