425,000 names of suspected Nazi collaborators published

The names of around 425,000 people suspected of collaborating with the Nazis during the German occupation of the Netherlands have been published online for the first time.

The names represent individuals who were investigated through a special legal system established towards the end of World War II. Of them, more than 150,000 faced some form of punishment.

Complete records of these investigations were previously only accessible by visiting the Dutch National Archives in The Hague.

The Huygens Institute, which helped digitize the archive, says this is a big obstacle for people who want to research the occupation of the Netherlands, which lasted from its invasion in 1940 to 1945.

“This archive contains important stories for present and future generations,” says the Huygens Institute.

“From children who want to know what their father did in the war, to historians who have research in the gray areas of collaboration.”

The archive contains files on war criminals, the approximately 20,000 Dutch people who enlisted in the German armed forces, and alleged members of the National Socialist Movement (NSB) – the Dutch Nazi party.

But it also contains the names of people who were found innocent.

This is because the archive consists of files from the Special Jurisdiction, which from 1944 investigated suspected collaborators.

The online database contains only the names of the suspects – as well as the date and place of their birth – which are only searchable with specific personal data.

It does not specify whether a particular person was guilty, or of what form of collaboration they were suspected.

But it will tell users which file to ask to see this information if they visit the National Archives. People accessing the physical files must declare a legitimate interest in viewing them.

There has been some concern in the Netherlands about personal information relating to a sensitive period of history being freely available – prompting the information published online to be initially limited.

“I’m afraid there will be very bad reactions,” Rinke Smedinga, whose father was a member of NSB and worked at Camp Westerbork, from which people were deported to concentration camps, told the Dutch online publication DIT .

“You have to anticipate that. You don’t just let it happen, as a kind of social experiment.”

Tom De Smet, the director of the National Archives, told DIT that the relatives of the collaborators and victims of the occupation should be considered.

But he added: “The collaboration is still a major trauma. We don’t talk about it. We hope that when the archives are opened, the taboo will be broken.”

In a letter to the parliament on December 19, the Minister of Culture Eppo Bruins wrote: “Opening the archives is crucial to face the effects of the difficult past (of the Netherlands) and to transform how and a society”.

How much information is available online would be limited given privacy concerns, and those visiting the archive in person would not be allowed to make copies. Bruins has expressed a desire to change the law to allow more information to be publicly disclosed.

The online database website says people who might still be alive are not listed online.