Amsterdam to repay families of Jews forced to pay rent arrears after Holocaust
The average sum to be reimbursed is around €1,800.
By JPOST.COM STAFFUpdated: SEPTEMBER 5, 2015 01:47AMSTERDAM, WITH SOME 750,000 citizens, is rich with culture, history, amazing architecture and modern entertainment.(photo credit: SAPIR PERETZ)
Amsterdam will repay families of Jewish Holocaust survivors who were forced to pay back-rent on their homes when they returned to the city at the end of the war, The Guardian reported on Friday.The Dutch Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide found that 240 camp survivors had been forced to pay such fines on their arrears when they returned to Amsterdam, according to the report. The survivors were billed for arrears on homes owned by the city of Amsterdam.The average sum to be reimbursed is around €1,800.“The descendants of the families can ask to be reimbursed for the fines imposed for late rental payments during World War II, which were unfairly collected,” said a statement on Friday.Amsterdam even imposed fines for late rents on houses that had been confiscated by the Nazis and occupied by Germans or members of the Dutch National Socialist Movement, according to The Guardian.Only 28,000 Dutch Jews out of a pre-war Jewish population of 120,000 survived the Holocaust. Most of the Jews died in Nazi concentration and death camps.Among those deported from the Netherlands was Anne Frank, a Jewish teenager who hid in an Amsterdam canal house until being deported with her family. "In percentage terms, The Netherlands had the highest deportation rate in Western Europe, Jacques Grishaver, chairman of the Dutch Auschwitz Committee said last year.Reuters contributed to this report.
