“This archive contains important stories for both present and future generations,” says the Huygens Institute.
“From children wanting to know what their father did in the war, to historians exploring the gray areas of collaboration.”
The archive contains files on war criminals, about 20,000 Dutchmen who enlisted in the German armed forces, and alleged members of the National Socialist Movement (NSB), the Dutch Nazi party.
But there are also names of people who have been found innocent.
This is due to the fact that the archive consists of the files of the Special Jurisdiction, which has been investigating suspected collaborators since 1944.
The online database contains only the names of suspects and their date and place of birth, which can only be searched by specific personal information.
At the same time, it is not specified whether a specific person was found guilty and in what form of cooperation he is suspected.
But it will tell users which file to request to see this information when they visit the National Archives. People accessing the physical files must declare a legitimate interest in viewing them.
In the Netherlands, there was some concern that personal information relating to a sensitive period of history was out in the open, with the result that the information published online was initially limited.
“I’m afraid there will be a very bad reaction,” Rinke Smedinga, whose father was a member of the NSB and worked at the Westerbork camp, from which people were deported to concentration camps, told Dutch online publication DIT.
“You have to anticipate that. You shouldn’t just let it happen as some sort of social experiment.’
Tom De Smet, director of the National Archives, told the DIT that relatives of both collaborators and victims of the occupation should be considered.
But he added: “Collaboration is still a major trauma. They don’t talk about it. We hope that when the archives are opened, the taboo will be broken.”
In a letter to parliament on December 19, Culture Minister Eppa Bruins wrote: “The openness of the archives is crucial in order to face the consequences of (the Netherlands’) difficult shared past and process it as a society.”
The amount of information available online will be limited due to privacy concerns, and those visiting the archive in person will not be allowed to make copies. The Bruins have expressed a desire to change the law to allow more information to be disclosed publicly.
The online database website says people who may still be alive are not listed online.
