I Paesi Bassi apriranno l’archivio delle persone accusate di collaborazionismo nazista in tempo di guerra

**Some descendants are apprehensive but a historian says making 30m pages of records public is ‘important step’**

For 80 years, details of their ancestors’ collaboration with the Nazis have been buried in spotless rows of filing cabinets in The Hague. But thousands of Dutch families face having their relatives’ history laid bare later this week when an archive opens on 425,000 people accused of siding with the occupier during the second world war.

On Thursday, the [central archives of the special jurisdiction courts](https://oorlogvoorderechter.nl/about-ovdr/) (CABR), established after the allies liberated the Netherlands to bring collaborators to justice, will open under national archive rules.

Until now, the most visited war archive in the [Netherlands](https://www.theguardian.com/world/netherlands) has been accessible only to researchers, those involved and direct descendants. But from Thursday the physical archive will open to general visitors.

For the first three months of 2025, researchers and descendants of victims and alleged perpetrators will also have digital access to a quarter of this extraordinary database – on site at the national archive in The Hague – for the first time.

Relatives have mixed feelings about the move. “It’s a bit uncomfortable,” said Connie, 74, one of three sisters whose family history is contained in the archive. “I don’t know what could come out of it eventually, if people Google our surname.”

But some in the Netherlands believe that openness about the country’s wartime past, including its economic and bureaucratic collaboration, is crucial. Three-quarters of the Dutch Jewish population – more than 102,000 people – were murdered by the Nazis, with [antisemitic collaboration](https://www.dutchnews.nl/2024/12/anti-semitism-in-the-netherlands-lessons-from-the-holocaust/) from the state, police and some of the Dutch population.

It is a past that the country is [only now coming to terms with](https://unherd.com/2024/03/the-dutch-are-facing-their-holocaust-demons/), opening a national Holocaust museum, making a public apology and funding research into the role of institutions and transport firms.

“This is part of the repression by the Dutch of their memories of collaboration, after we had punished our military and political collaborators,” said Johannes Houwink ten Cate, an emeritus professor of [Holocaust](https://www.theguardian.com/world/holocaust) studies at Amsterdam University. “I can understand the children and grandchildren of collaborators now fear possible consequences, but my personal experience is that their feelings come to rest once they have seen the files. Making this open is an important step.”

Take notes Canada, this will be a handy reference for you.