Names of 425,000 suspected Nazi collaborators published
The names of some 425,000 people suspected of collaborating with the Nazis during the German occupation of the Netherlands have been published online for the first time.
These names represent individuals who were investigated through a special legal system established at the end of World War II. More than 150,000 of them faced some form of punishment.
Complete records of these investigations could previously only be obtained by visiting the Dutch National Archives in The Hague.
The Huygens Institute, which helped digitize the collection, says it poses a major hurdle for people wanting to research the occupation of the Netherlands, which lasted from its invasion of 1940 to 1945.
The Huygens Institute says, “This collection contains important stories for both present and future generations.”
“From children who want to know what their father did in the war, to historians who are researching gray areas of cooperation.”
The archive contains files on war criminals, approximately 20,000 Dutch people recruited into the German armed forces, and alleged members of the National Socialist Movement (NSB) – the Dutch Nazi Party.
But it also includes the names of those who were found innocent.
This is because the archive contains the files of the Special Jurisdiction, which investigated suspected collaborators since 1944.
The online database contains only the names of suspects – as well as their date and place of birth – which can only be searched using specific personal details.
It does not specify whether any particular individual was found guilty, or what type of collaboration they were suspected of.
But it will tell users which file to request to view this information when visiting the National Archives. People accessing physical files must declare a legitimate interest in viewing them.
There has been some concern in the Netherlands about making personal information relating to a sensitive period of history freely available – which is why information published online was initially limited.
“I fear there will be very bad reactions,” Rinke Smedinga, whose father was an NSB member and worked at Camp Westerbork, from which people were deported to concentration camps, told Dutch online publication DIT.
“You have to anticipate it. You don’t have to let it happen as a kind of social experiment.”
Tom De Smet, director of the National Archives, told the DIT that relatives of both collaborators and victims of the occupation had to be taken into account.
But he added, “Collaboration is still a big shock. It is not talked about. We hope that when the archives are opened, the taboos will be broken.”
In a letter to Parliament on 19 December, Culture Minister Eppo Bruins wrote: “It is important for the archives to be open in order to confront the effects of (the Netherlands’) difficult shared past and process it as a society.”
Due to privacy concerns, the amount of information made available online will be limited and those viewing the collection in person will not be permitted to make copies. The Bruins have expressed a desire to change the law to allow more information to be disclosed publicly.
The online database’s website says people who may still be alive are not listed online.
