Dutch Trains To Compensate Decendants Of Jews Deported To Nazi Camps

[appalachiablue]

Source: DW

"The Netherlands's state-owned railway company made millions during WWII by operating trains that sent hundreds of thousands of Jews, including Anne Frank, to their deaths in Nazi camps."

The Netherlands state-owned train company, Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS), will compensate individuals whose Jewish relatives were deported on its trains to concentration and extermination camps when the country was under Nazi-German occupation during World War II.

Announced Tuesday on the nightly public television news show, the decision marks the first time that the train company will pay damages to individual descendants of Holocaust victims. Previously the NS had donated money to various remembrance projects.

"We have jointly decided ... to found a committee," NS President Roger van Boxtel said. "This committee will find out how we can arrange financial aid to those affected." The number of individuals to receive compensation, as well as the total to be paid out, remains unknown.

Millions made from transporting Jews. Following the occupation of the Netherland by Nazi troops in May 1940, the NS followed orders to deport Jews to the transit camp Westerbork. Around 107,000 Jews, including Anne Frank, were sent there before eventually being transported to other concentration and extermination camps, including Auschwitz and Sobibor. The Nazis paid the state train company for transporting the Jews. -MORE...

Read more: https://www.dw.com/en/dutch-trains-to-compensate-descendants-of-jews-deported-to-nazi-camps/a-46480605

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According to national broadcaster, the NS took in a rough profit of present-day €2.5 million ($2.8 million) under Nazi occupation for operating the trains.



A postcard of the Dutch railway from 1934.



Many Jews transported on Dutch trains eventually were sent to the extermination camp Auschwitz.




The Westerbork transit camp, today a museum.




1940, Anne Frank (1929-1945) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Frank

[htuttle]

1. Good on them for the sentiment, but...

...it's hard for me to imagine how they could possibly 'compensate' descendants of people whom they drove to their deaths without it being almost insultingly symbolic.

Are they talking about refunding the cost of the train ticket? At least by giving to remembrance projects, they were accomplishing something via education.

[appalachiablue]

2. The effort by the NS is commendable, and can never

fully compensate for their role in the evil and final actions of the Nazis of course.

A committee is being formed and experts will decide how to best distribute funds to the descendants of Jews transported from the Netherlands. The Dutch are known for their sense of fairness and with input, they'll make good decisions I'm sure. A substantial amount of money is involved.

>"According to national broadcaster, the NS took in a rough profit of present-day €2.5 million ($2.8 million) under Nazi occupation for operating the trains."

[BlueMTexpat]

3. This is a commendable effort.

While yes, amounts paid may be literally token, they are rarely unappreciated. Based on my own work with similar programs, what seems to matter most to survivors is that their suffering has been officially recognized and acknowledged.

Many Dutch people worked against the Nazis in one way or another and paid terrible prices for doing so. See, e.g., "The Resistance Banker," one of the most recent descriptions. It is available on Netflix. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Resistance_Banker

What many remember - and rightly so - about Anne Frank is the courage displayed by the families in hiding. But they could not have lasted as long as they did without the incredible courage and help of Miep Gies and others. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miep_Gies

From the Miep Gies link:

On the morning of 4 August 1944, sitting at her desk, Gies looked up and saw a man pointing a gun towards her, Voskuijl, and Kleiman and said, "Stay put! Don't move!" The families had been betrayed and the Grüne Polizei arrested the people hidden at 263 Prinsengracht, as well as Kugler and Kleiman. The next day, Gies went to the German police office to try to find them. She offered money to buy their freedom, but did not succeed. Gies and the other helpers could have been executed if they had been caught hiding Jews; however, she was not arrested because the police officer who came to interrogate her was from Vienna, her birth town. She recognized his accent and told him they had the same home town. He was amazed, then started pacing and cursing at her. Then he decided to let her stay.[14] Gies remained safe with Jan in Amsterdam throughout the rest of the war.

Before the hiding place was emptied by the authorities, Gies retrieved Anne Frank's diaries and saved them in her desk drawer. Once the war was over and it was confirmed that Anne Frank had perished in Bergen-Belsen, Gies gave the collection of papers and notebooks to the sole survivor from the Secret Annex, Otto Frank.[7] After transcribing sections for his family, his daughter's literary ability became apparent and he arranged for the book's publication in 1947. Gies did not read the diaries before turning them over to Otto, and later remarked that if she had, she would have had to destroy them because the diary contained the names of all five of the helpers as well as their black market suppliers. She was persuaded by Otto Frank to read it in its second printing.[8] As 1947 came, she and Jan Gies moved to Jekerstraat 65, by the Merwedeplein [nl]. Otto Frank moved with them.[9]

Gies was interviewed about her memories of hiding the Frank family for the 1995 documentary film Anne Frank Remembered by Jon Blair.

The Dutch fund will likely be administered and awarded through various Jewish organizations that have been active in awarding such compensation since WWII. See, e.g., http://www.claimscon.org/