President of the Jewish Council in Amsterdam. Jewish businessman, politician, and leader of his community. He attained notoriety for his role during the German occupation of the Netherlands (1940–1945). Asscher’s grandfather founded the Asscher Diamond Company in 1854, but it was Abraham and his brother Joseph who built its international fame. In 1907 the brothers opened a new factory at 127 Tolstraat in Amsterdam and soon they received a request from King Edward VII of Great Britain to split the Cullinan Diamond, the largest rough gem-quality diamond ever found. Asscher translated his success in business into political and community involvement. In 1917, he took up a seat on the Provincial Council of North Holland for the Liberale Staatspartij (Liberal State Party), and in the 1930s, he became a leader and spokesman of the Dutch Jewish community. He served as the President of the nation’s central Jewish organization, the Nederlandsch-Israëlitsch Kerkgenootschap (Dutch Jewish Congregation). When in 1933 Jewish refugees began to flee from the Nazi regime in Germany to the Netherlands, it was Asscher, along with Professor David Cohen, who established, with government cooperation, the Comité voor Bijzondere Joodsche Belangen. (Committee for Special Jewish Affairs - CBJB). An offshoot of the CBJB, the Comité voor Joodsche Vluchtelingen (Committee for Jewish Refugees - CJV), was formed to provide direct service to the refugees. The CJV provided advice and, if needed, financial support to the refugees, and worked to facilitate the emigration of refugees away from continental Europe. David Cohen was the chair of the CJV for most of its eight years of existence. Both of these committees were dissolved by Germany in 1941, and their responsibilities transferred to a Jewish Council. It was in this context that the Nazi occupiers later, on February 12, 1941, ordered Asscher and Cohen to head up a new Joodse Raad voor Amsterdam, the only example of a Jewish Council in the German occupations of Western Europe. The first meeting was held at the Asscher Brothers headquarters in Tolstraat. The Joodse Raad had to mediate the occupation government’s orders to the Dutch Jewish community, and beginning in July 1942, to help organize the selection of Jewish deportees from the Netherlands to the work camps. In September 1943, most of the remaining staff of the Joodse Raad, including Asscher, were deported. Asscher initially was sent to the Westerbork camp in Drenthe. From there the Nazis transported him to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Asscher survived his imprisonment at Bergen-Belsen and returned to Amsterdam after the conclusion of the war. Aside from historian David Cohen, who survived Theresienstadt concentration camp, all other members of the Jewish Council perished, including the chief rabbi of Amsterdam, Lodewijk Sarlouis. The Dutch government instituted investigations against Asscher and Cohen into charges of collaboration. A Joodsche Eereraad (Jewish Council of Honor or Community Tribunal) was also established to investigate wartime collaboration charges on behalf of the Jewish community. It was especially concerned with activity after August 15, 1942; a point from which, according to the accusers' post-war perspective, it was considered obvious the Joodse Raad was assisting in a mass-murder of Dutch Jews in German-occupied Poland’s Nazi extermination camps. However, what was obvious to anyone, Jew or non-Jew in the Netherlands at that time, is unknown. The Nazi occupiers went to great lengths to conceal the fate of deported Jews from the Dutch population, including Dutch Jews and the Joodse Raad. In 1947 the Council of Honor ruled to exclude Asscher and Cohen from ever holding public office in the Dutch Jewish Community, but by then, Asscher, quiet upset by what he saw as unjust charges against him, had left the community. When Asscher died, in accordance with his wishes, he was not buried in a Jewish cemetery, but instead at the Zorgvlied cemetery. However, in the same year, due to constant protests and appeals, the Jewish community tribunal, after reconsidering the charges, reversed and annulled its decree to exclude both Asscher and Cohen from official posts in the Jewish community, exonerating them completely. The Dutch government dropped all charges of its own the next year. The actions of Asscher and the Joodse Raad during the German occupation are controversial. Cohen declared after the war that "thanks to our efforts no Jew suffered from hunger in occupied Holland." Because of Asscher and Cohen, the deportation of the Jews in the Netherlands was thought to be more efficient than anywhere else in occupied Europe. In 1980, the company that Asscher's grandfather had created was awarded the royal title by Dutch Queen Juliana. It is now known as Koninklijke Asscher Diamant Maatschappij (Royal Asscher Diamond Company). Abraham’s grandson, Edward Asscher, is the current President of the Company. His great-grandson Lodewijk Asscher was the Dutch Minister of Social Affairs and Employment until 2017.