The February strike (Dutch: Februaristaking) of 1941 was a general strike in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands during World War II. It was organized by the outlawed Communist Party of the Netherlands in defence of persecuted Dutch Jews and against the anti-Jewish measures and the activities of Nazism in general.

The direct causes were a series of arrests and pogroms held by the Germans in the Jewish neighbourhood of Amsterdam, the Jodenbuurt. It started on 25 February 1941 and lasted for two days. By 26 February, 300,000 people had joined the strike. The Germans harshly suppressed the strike, which mostly dissipated by 27 February.

The February strike is considered to be the first public protest against the Nazis in occupied Europe. No major Dutch public action against the Nazis came after it, as the Reichskommissar of the Netherlands, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, warned the public that there would be draconian consequences. There was a smaller public action against the deportation of Jews to be organized by non-Jews in Berlin, known as the Rosenstrasse protest.

The Netherlands surrendered to Nazi Germany in May 1940, and the first anti-Jewish measures—the barring of Jews from the air-raid defence services—began in June 1940. In November 1940 all Jews were removed from public positions, including universities, which led directly to student protests in Leiden and elsewhere. Meanwhile, there was an increasing feeling of unrest by workers in Amsterdam, especially the workers at the shipyards in Amsterdam-Noord, who were threatened with forced labour in Germany.

As tensions rose, the Dutch Nazi party Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging and its militant arm, the WA (Weerbaarheidsafdeling), were involved in a series of provocations in Jewish neighbourhoods in Amsterdam. This led to a series of street battles between the WA and Jewish self-defence groups and their supporters, and culminated in a pitched battle on 11 February 1941 on the Waterlooplein. WA member Hendrik Koot was badly wounded and died of his injuries on 14 February.

On 12 February, German soldiers, assisted by Dutch police, encircled and cordoned the old Jewish neighbourhood from the rest of the city by putting up barbed wire, raising bridges, and setting up police checkpoints. The neighbourhood was now forbidden for non-Jews.

On 19 February, the German Grüne Polizei stormed into the Koco ice-cream parlour on Van Woustraat in Rivierenbuurt. In the fight that ensued, several police officers were wounded. Revenge came in the weekend of 22–23 February, when a large-scale pogrom was undertaken by the Germans in which 425 Jewish men of age 20–35 were taken hostage and imprisoned in Kamp Schoorl and eventually sent to the Buchenwald and Mauthausen concentration camps, where most of them had died within a year. Of the 425, only two survived the war.

After the pogrom, on 24 February, an open-air meeting was held on the Noordermarkt to organise a strike to protest against the pogrom and the forced labour to Germany. The Communist Party of the Netherlands, which was made illegal by the Germans, printed and spread a call to strike throughout the city the next morning. The first to strike were the city's tram drivers, followed by other city services as well as companies like department store De Bijenkorf and schools. Eventually 300,000 people joined in the strike, which brought much of the city to a halt and caught the Germans by surprise.