Uncategorized
Dutch archives on accused Nazi collaborators to open to the public in 2025
(JTA) — The Dutch government is planning to throw open information about 300,000 people investigated for their collaboration with the Nazis, in a move that could accelerate a reckoning with the Netherlands’ Holocaust record.
For the past seven decades, only researchers and relatives of those accused of collaborating with the Nazis could access the information held by the Dutch archives. But a law guarding the data is set to expire in 2025.
In February, The War in Court, a Dutch consortium devoted to preserving history, announced that it would make the records available online when the privacy law expires. The effort drew additional attention this week when a New York Times article explored concerns the hopes and concerns held by people in the Netherlands who have an idea of what lies within the sweeping repository.
“It’s a sensitive archive,” Edwin Klijn, project leader of The War in Cort, told the Times.
“For years, the whole theme of collaboration has been a kind of taboo,” he added. “We don’t talk about collaboration that much but we’re now 80 years further and it’s time for us to face this dark part of the war.”
The Netherlands has world’s second-highest number of documented saviors of Jews, but it also had many collaborators who, aided by the topography and Holland’s proximity to Germany, helped the Nazis achieve the highest death rate there among Jews anywhere in Nazi-occupied Western Europe. Of 140,000 Dutch Jews, more than 100,000 were murdered. As is presumed to have happened with the most famous victim of the Nazis in the Netherlands, the teenaged diarist Anne Frank, many were given up by their neighbors and acquaintances.
The Dutch government investigated 300,000 people for collaborating with the Nazis and more than 65,000 of them stood trial in a special court system in the years after World War II. But it was only in 2020 that the Dutch government apologized for failing to protect Jews during the Holocaust, long after other European leaders and after local Jews had requested an apology; a town square was named for a mayor who handed Jews to the Nazis until last year.
The archive due to open in 2025 will offer widespread access to the files from the postwar investigations, which researchers who have used the files say are detailed — and also could contain false accusations made at a tumultuous time.
The 32 million documents contained in the archive stretch to nearly two and a half miles and include witness reports, Dutch National Socialist Movement membership cards, diaries, and petitions for pardons and photos. Currently, the archive receives between 5,000 and 6,000 requests a year and cannot accommodate more.
The documents will be digitized to allow searches by key words or names. “You will be able to type in the name of a victim and discover who was accused of betraying them,” Klijn said.
The effort will be second major digitization of a Holocaust document trove in the Netherlands, where an efficient collaboration machine made for detailed records. In 2021, the Red Cross transferred ownership of its Index Card Archive, a repository of nearly 160,000 cards with personal information of Dutch Jews maintained by the Jewish Council of Amsterdam, a body set up by the Nazis to govern the community ahead of its extermination, to the National Holocaust Museum in the Netherlands. The museum will reopen to visitors next year but has made the cards accessible online already.
Paul Shapiro, director of the Office of International Affairs at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., told The New York Times that the new Dutch database is unusual — and important — because of the planned ease of access.
“Genocidal crimes leave a very long legacy behind them,” Shapiro said. “For better or worse, the only way to resolve some of those issues is to have your eyes wide open and look at the past openly and accept what the history really was. One way to look at that is through the paper trail in the archives.”
In 2020, the Vatican unsealed its archives from World War II, sharing 2,700 files that revealed details about Pope Pius XII’s relationship with Nazi Germany. Those records showed that the Vatican fought efforts to reunite Jewish orphans with their relatives and also urged the Pope not to protest the deportation of Italian Jews.
—
The post Dutch archives on accused Nazi collaborators to open to the public in 2025 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Israel Urges Lebanon to Disarm Hezbollah Under Ceasefire Terms
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participate in the state memorial ceremony for the fallen of the Iron Swords War on Mount Herzl. In Jerusalem on 16 October 2025. Photo: Alex Kolomoisky/POOL/Pool via REUTERS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Sunday that Hezbollah was seeking to rearm and that Israel would exercise its right to self-defense under last year’s ceasefire accord if Lebanon failed to disarm the terrorist group.
At the start of a cabinet meeting Netanyahu said Israel would “act as necessary,” if Lebanon does not take steps to prevent its territory from becoming a renewed front.
The US brokered a truce in November 2024 between Lebanon and Israel after more than a year of conflict sparked by the war in Gaza, but Israeli strikes across the border have continued sporadically.
The Israeli military said in a statement on Sunday that it had killed four Hezbollah members.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also said the Lebanese government must fulfill its commitment to disarm Hezbollah and remove the group from southern Lebanon.
Katz said maximum enforcement efforts would continue and intensify to protect Israeli residents in the north.
Under the ceasefire accord, Lebanon agreed that only state security forces should bear arms, which means Hezbollah must be fully disarmed.
Lebanese army sources told Reuters they had blown up so many Hezbollah arms caches that they had run out of explosives and they expect to complete their sweep of the country’s south by the end of the year.
Once the dominant political party in Lebanon, Hezbollah was severely weakened by the war with Israel, which killed thousands of fighters and longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Hezbollah has publicly committed to the ceasefire and has not opposed the seizures of unmanned weapons caches in the south. It has not fired on Israel since the November truce.
However, it insists the disarmament, as mentioned in the text, only applies to the south of Lebanon and has hinted conflict is possible if the state moves against the group.
Uncategorized
Iran’s Nuclear Capabilities ‘Wiped Out,’ Says Former Mossad Chief
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
i24 News – Former Mossad director Yossi Cohen said in an interview with Fox News on Friday that Iran’s nuclear program had been “wiped out,” describing it as a turning point in Israel’s security posture and regional diplomacy.
Cohen claimed that Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities had been eliminated following joint Israeli-American strikes earlier this year.
“Iran is in a very different position,” he said. “They can no longer enrich uranium at present.” He echoed former US President Donald Trump’s earlier remarks that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been “wiped out” during the operation.
Calling the strikes a “great success,” Cohen said the mission sent two messages to Tehran: that Israel could carry out such large-scale operations in coordination with the United States, and that it was prepared to strike again if Iran sought to resume uranium enrichment.
“We destroyed their air defenses, their Revolutionary Guard bases, and hunted them down even into their bedrooms in Tehran and other cities,” Cohen said, describing the extent of the offensive.
Turning to regional diplomacy, Cohen credited the Trump administration for its role in both the strikes and broader mediation efforts in the Middle East. He said the recent ceasefire between Israel and Gaza could open the door to a “reconstruction of relations” across the region and renewed peace talks inspired by the Abraham Accords.
Cohen also mentioned Saudi Arabia’s growing engagement, noting that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was expected to visit Washington soon for discussions with US officials. “Not only is this visit important for him, but also for us in the region,” he said.
He added that other Muslim-majority countries, including Indonesia, had shown interest in potential peace initiatives. “We should expect to see more peace treaties in the near future,” Cohen said. “I believe we will witness a better Middle East.”
Uncategorized
Hamas Hands Over Three More Hostage Bodies
A Palestinian woman walks through the rubble of destroyed buildings, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, November 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Hamas handed over bodies of three hostages on Sunday, even as the Palestinian terrorist group traded blame with Israel for violations of the tenuous truce that has mostly halted two years of war.
Israeli forces in Gaza received coffins carrying the bodies of three hostages, conveyed through the Red Cross, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said. The remains will be transported to Israel for identification.
The bodies are expected to be those of three of the 11 hostages whose remains Israel is seeking from Gaza under the terms of the ceasefire. Israel has said Hamas has been too slow in delivering them; Hamas says it is working as quickly as possible under difficult conditions.
The issue has been just one of the disputes holding up full implementation of the US-brokered ceasefire in place since October 10.
Earlier on Sunday, an Israeli airstrike killed one man in northern Gaza. The Israeli military said its aircraft had struck a militant who was posing a threat to its forces. Al-Ahli Hospital said one man was killed in the airstrike near a vegetable market in the Shejaia suburb of Gaza City.
“There are still Hamas pockets in the areas under our control in Gaza, and we are systematically eliminating them,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in broadcast remarks at the start of a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.
Hamas released what it described as a list of violations of the ceasefire by Israel. Ismail Al-Thawabta, the director of the Hamas-run Gaza government media office, denied that Hamas fighters had violated the truce by attacking Israeli soldiers.
VIOLENCE NOT COMPLETELY HALTED
The ceasefire has calmed most fighting, allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to return to the ruins of their homes in Gaza. Israel has withdrawn troops from positions in cities and more aid has been allowed in.
Hamas released all 20 living hostages held in Gaza in return for nearly 2,000 Palestinian convicts and wartime detainees held by Israel.
Hamas also agreed under the ceasefire to hand over the remains of 28 dead hostages in exchange for the bodies of 360 Palestinian militants killed in the war. Before Sunday it had turned over 17.
Meanwhile, violence has not completely halted. Palestinian health authorities say Israeli forces have killed 236 people in strikes on Gaza since the truce, nearly half of them in a single day last week when Israel retaliated for an attack on its troops. Israel says three of its soldiers have been killed and it has targeted scores of fighters.
The ceasefire was mediated by the United States, and both sides have appealed to Washington to halt violations.
The US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, met on Saturday with Israel’s military chief Eyal Zamir during a visit to the region to discuss Gaza, the Israeli military said.
Netanyahu said any Israeli action in Gaza is reported to Washington. Hamas said the United States was not doing enough to ensure Israel abides by the ceasefire agreement.
About 200 US troops have set up base in southern Israel to monitor the ceasefire and help make plans for an international force to stabilize the enclave, as foreseen in later phases of US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war.
There has been little sign of progress on the next stages so far, and major obstacles still lie ahead, including the disarmament of Hamas and a timeline for Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.