Tuesday, 3 May 2016 - 11:26
Lawsuit demands National Archives open up to hunt Dutch war criminals
The Foundation for Research on War Crimes is considering a lawsuit against the National Archives in an attempt to force the archives to provide information on Dutch who worked as guards for the SS in the Vught concentration camp during World War II, Trouw reports.
According to the foundation, the National Archives has a lot of information on Dutch war criminals, but refuses to give them access as this would "violate the privacy of those involved". But the foundation believes that the interest of the victims should outweigh that of the perpetrators.
The foundation therefore called in lawyer Geert-Jan Knoops to investigate what legal actions they can take against the Archives.
The guards who worked at the Vught concentration camp would be in their early nineties today. There is a chance that some of them are still alive and never accounted for their crimes, the foundation said to the newspaper.