Seven municipalities still refuse to probe Nazi-era theft of Jewish property
Seven Dutch municipalities have yet to launch investigations into the forced sale and theft of Jewish-owned properties during World War II, despite documented evidence that these towns either facilitated the seizure or directly purchased such real estate. This includes municipalities such as Almelo, Hengelo, and Rijswijk, each with at least ten recorded transactions involving the confiscation of Jewish property or municipal acquisition of stolen real estate. The information comes from a comprehensive survey conducted by Pointer, which has been tracking municipal responses to wartime injustices for the past five years.
The chairman of the Centraal Joods Overleg, Ronny Naftaniel, sharply criticized these municipalities, stating they are "acting wrongly" and failing their societal responsibility by not investigating potential historical wrongdoings. "These kinds of investigations are expensive, and restitution often did take place," Naftaniel said. "But if there is reason to believe a municipality profited from a Jewish property, it has the moral duty to investigate that specific case. Not just out of obligation to surviving Jewish citizens, if any remain, but as a form of historical justice."
Pointer has reviewed all 218 Dutch municipalities listed in the so-called Verkaufsbücher, which recorded the confiscation and resale of Jewish property by the Nazis and their collaborators. Since the project began, 168 municipalities have announced investigations into whether stolen homes were returned to rightful Jewish owners after the war, and whether municipalities obstructed those return efforts. So far, 139 municipalities have completed and published their findings.
However, despite having knowledge of property seizures within their jurisdictions, 50 municipalities have yet to conduct any inquiry. Among them, 44 towns are known to have fewer than ten recorded confiscations, which experts say makes it difficult to draw meaningful conclusions about municipal conduct during the war. Yet in the remaining cases, the evidence is too substantial to ignore.
Almelo has the highest number of outstanding cases, with 60 known transactions involving the forced sale of Jewish properties. The municipality reportedly continues to delay any investigation, stating that it is waiting for descendants of original owners to come forward and file complaints. Naftaniel dismissed this approach as a "nonsensical argument," stressing that such research should not depend on whether victims or their families initiate the process. "You don’t conduct these investigations only for the original owners or their descendants,” he said. “They are meant to help us understand what happened during the war. We can still draw lessons from it today."
Rijswijk has 30 known transactions and has not initiated any investigation. Midden-Drenthe has 23, Hengelo 22, including one property purchased by the municipality. Waterland has 13, and Culemborg 11. In Hillegom, there are only two transactions, but one of them involved the municipality acquiring the property. According to Naftaniel, this alone warrants an investigation to determine the fate of that home. He said it is believed that the building was demolished after the war, following the natural death of the original owner. It remains unclear whether any descendants were informed about the building's existence or the municipality’s involvement.
Hengelo previously announced in 2020 that it would launch an investigation. However, last year, when Pointer followed up, a spokesperson revealed that due to an internal misunderstanding, no research was ever initiated. The municipality now has no plans to conduct one. “I’m afraid something went wrong in responding to the earlier question,” the spokesperson said.
Naftaniel emphasized that even municipalities with few cases should consider their responsibilities. He cited Apeldoorn as an example, where deep archival research revealed a property at Stationsstraat 88 that was not listed in the Verkaufsbücher. During the war, the building had been leased by a wartime buyer to the municipality, which used it as a distribution center. After the war, a surviving relative sought to reclaim the building and invalidate both the sale and lease, but the municipality initially refused to vacate the property. It took two years before the rightful owner regained possession. Following this investigation, Apeldoorn officially apologized.
Although 139 municipalities have presented their research findings, concerns about the quality of these investigations persist. In 43 of those cases, the research consisted only of preliminary inquiries or was conducted by non-independent parties. As a result, the conclusions often allegedly fail to provide a reliable assessment of how municipalities treated returning Jewish survivors.
Naftaniel, who has served as an advisor in various focus groups connected to these investigations, said that some reports were inadequate and require a complete reevaluation. He noted that much depends on how the research questions were formulated. He also expressed concern that many municipalities focus too narrowly on transactions recorded in the Verkaufsbücher and ignore broader issues, such as the treatment of Jewish survivors. In some cases, survivors were charged renovation fees or faced resistance from postwar tenants refusing to vacate their homes. These situations, Naftaniel argued, also deserve scrutiny.
The Verkaufsbücher document about 8,000 transactions, but historians estimate that between 16,000 and 20,000 Jewish properties were seized during the war. Many of these properties were never sold but instead leased, meaning they were not recorded in the Verkaufsbücher. Naftaniel said investigations rarely address whether justice was served in those cases, even though such analysis is critical to understanding postwar restitution efforts.
According to Naftaniel, it is vital to examine how civil servants acted during and after the war. He argued that while officials are expected to follow the law, they often did so rigidly, even when they knew those rules inflicted harm on survivors. “You can learn a great deal from that,” he said. “There’s often no consideration for personal circumstances. Even after five years of media coverage, many municipalities still do not grasp the importance of these investigations. Some are just relieved when it's over. And they only initiated the research because of pressure from Pointer.”
In Apeldoorn, the municipality allocated 700,000 euros in 2022 to expand the Holocaust memorial center Het Apeldoornsche Bosch. That same year, Winterswijk donated 75,000 euros to the Stichting Cultuurbehoud Achterhoek for the renovation and upkeep of a synagogue the municipality had purchased during the war. After the war, the town attempted to resell the building to returning Jewish residents. In Maastricht, 100,000 euros was made available for the Jewish community in 2023, partly to maintain the synagogue. An additional 25,000 euros went toward Holocaust education.
More recently, Delft committed 150,000 euros to preserve its synagogue and Jewish cemetery. In Groningen, a descendant received formal apologies and a financial settlement of over 300,000 euros in 2022 for the wartime sale of a family property.
“You can’t undo what happened during and after the war,” Naftaniel said. “But you can still learn from it and try to combat antisemitism and racism.”
