Dutch to refund bills sent to Jews while they were in WWII concentration camps
Families of those deported to camps will get back rent charged in absence
Peter Cluskey
Wed, Oct 16, 2013, 01:00
The families of Jewish Amsterdammers who were charged ground rent for their homes and business premises during the years they spent in concentration camps or in hiding during the second World War are to have the money they paid refunded by the city, with interest.
Sixty-eight years after the end of the war, the decision is another indication that the Netherlands has not yet come to terms with the fact that it arguably failed to protect its Jewish population, which fell from 139,717 – the majority of them in Amsterdam – in 1941 to just 35,000 in 1945.
Most of those Jews were sent to Westerbork transit camp – many Jews still insist on referring to it as the Netherlands’ own “concentration camp” – in the northeast of the country, before being sent by rail to Auschwitz and other concentration camps in Germany.
Among those who made that journey and never returned was the young diarist Anne Frank ...
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/dutch-to-refund-bills-sent-to-jews-while-they-were-in-wwii-concentration-camps-1.1561829