Dutch civil servant Karel Frederiks had made an arrangement, later called Plan Frederiks, with the occupiers to keep a small group of Dutch Jews in the Netherlands and exclude them from deportation to the labour, concentration, or extermination camps abroad.

Another civil servant, Jan van Dam, also approached Schmidt and within months the list was extended to a few hundred, selected from thousands of Jewish lawyers, professors, doctors, musicians and actors begging to be included.

[1][2] Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart officially promised to keep those on the list from being deported to camps abroad.

[3] Historian Loe de Jong called the Barneveld Jews "an easy prey for the occupier" in his 14 volume book series The Kingdom of the Netherlands During World War II.

[4] Frederiks arranged an empty castle near Barneveld, De Schaffelaar, to house the Jews.

[4] Camp Barneveld was run by a Dutch officer, supported by six staff who performed administrative duties as well as acting as guards.

[9] Prominent names among them were writer Abel Herzberg,[2] member of the House of Representatives Betsy Bakker-Nort,[10] and jurist Eduard Meijers.

[9][12] On 4 September 1944 the group was put on a train to concentration camp Theresienstadt in Bohemia; a list from Westerbork exists with 650 names of which 16 are crossed out.