The personal data of some 300,000 Dutch people who were investigated or tried after World War II for their collaboration with the Nazis will be available on the internet for all citizens who want to consult them.
The project is called
Oorlog voor de Rechter
(The war before the courts) and will be made accessible to the public from 2025. The digitization process has been announced this Thursday by the National Archives of the Netherlands, and the files range from cases of denunciation and treason when fighting together with the German army on the Eastern Front, affiliation with the National Socialist Movement of the Netherlands (NSB), a fascist party and the only legal one during the occupation.
Until now, the files have been able to be consulted with limitations to protect those involved alive, but the period of protection of personal data expires in two years, when it is estimated that those possibly affected will already have died.
The descendants of the collaborators, especially their children,
The digitized archive, with broader access to data, will include files on cases of unfounded suspicions and acquittals.
Its opening will provide a more complete vision of the social reality during the contest.
In addition, the relatives of the victims will be able to find out information that they may not know.
Of the 107,000 Jews deported from the Netherlands to the concentration camps, only 5,000 returned.
The documentation on the processes of Dutch collaborationism is part of the Central Archive of the Special Jurisdiction (CABR, in its Dutch acronym).
During World War II, the Netherlands had 8.5 million inhabitants, according to statistics.
Both those who ended up being tried after 1945 ―close to 20% of the 300,000 investigated― as well as those who never came before the judges, appear in that file.
Nearly 1,900 people were sentenced to 10 years or more in prison.
The documents about all these lives, with photos, diaries, witness statements or requests for pardons, now occupy almost four kilometers of the archive.
In total, 154 death sentences were handed down and there were 39 executions.
Although the investigations lasted until 1951,
Three SS soldiers stroll through a Dutch port city in August 1940. getty
“There is interest on our part in knowing what happened.
The 150,000 people interned [during the investigations] suffered abuse, lack of food and forced labor," said Jeroen Saris, president of the volunteer foundation that has brought together the descendants of collaborators since 1981 (Stichting Werkgroup Herkenning, in Dutch).
“Many were not even guilty, or the offense committed was not so serious.
They were harshly punished, and now the facts can be better investigated.
The opening of the archive is a legal obligation after 75 years, and it is in everyone's interest to know the true story of the war, ”he continues.
The digitization project has an ethical committee and for Saris “it is necessary to find a balance in the safeguarding of privacy, with some data that may need to be protected;
there is time until 2025 to see how to do it”.
The foundation he represents estimates that some 100,000 Dutchmen joined the NSB party and about 25,000 fought in the German ranks.
Her children, in particular, seek official recognition for the marginalization suffered in Dutch society itself due to the collaborationism of their parents.
But at the moment, there is no political consensus to debate this chapter of the past.
The Government spent the war in exile, in the United Kingdom, and Queen Wilhelmina ordered special courts to investigate and judge, where appropriate, all doubtful cases.
What followed after the liberation of the Netherlands was “a large-scale operation, with arrests all over the country, and very strict criteria for what was considered collaboration,” Anne-Marieke Samson, a spokeswoman for the National Archives, says by phone.
When it became clear that many people had had something to do with the German oppressor, the most serious cases were sought: “For example, having had an NSB card was not enough to be brought to trial.
It was necessary that the owner had done something reprehensible or flagrant.
The files not only contain the names of the suspects and their victims, but also relatives or neighbors of the detainees.
“The file is not a black and white paper on the sentence of the judges.
It offers a lot of nuance and insight into what happened in the war.
From the witness statements, we will see whether the members of the NSB party were isolated in their own circles or well integrated into society,” says historian Kees Ribbens, who specializes in World War II memory culture.
In Ribbens' opinion, the Dutch perception of the contest has varied over time.
“In 1946, it was thought that we were a country of heroes and that many citizens were part of the resistance.
Now we understand that only a part of the population joined the resistance, and that there were others who collaborated with the German occupiers.
By opening the archive to the public, we will see what happened to ordinary people, to the victims.
We will see how the war was, and researchers will be able to approach the past in a more structured way.”
Although other countries, such as Belgium or France, keep documents of this nature, the historian believes that it is the first time that they have been digitized on the scale that the Netherlands will do.
To consult the data in the file, it will be necessary to enter a keyword into the system: the last name of the person sought, a street, a battle, a local event.
“We will also use artificial intelligence to combine data, because in each file there is information about other people.
So it can not only interest the descendants of the suspects: it can provide new information to those of the victims.
It is possible that these stories have not been fully told among the Dutch Jewish community either, and they will be able to know what happened to their own ”, indicates the spokeswoman for the National Archives.
From the institution they clarify that the current privacy restrictions will be without effect in 2025: "It is considered that there will no longer be protagonists alive, but the dossier of those who do live will not be published."
Together with the National Archives, the Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide (NIOD), the Netwerk Oorlogsbronnen organization for war documentation, and the Huygens Institute for Dutch History are collaborating on the project.
Digitization will be complete in 2027, and Samson estimates that 32 million note scans will have been made by then.
Funding is provided by the ministries of Education and Culture, Health, and Justice.
Follow all the international information on
and
, or in
our weekly newsletter
.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Keep reading
I'm already a subscriber