Collaborator – History of Sorts

The “Trawniki Men”

The history of the Trawniki Men stands as a chilling testament to the banality of evil and the role that ordinary individuals can play in perpetrating atrocities on a massive scale. While their actions may have faded into obscurity for many, it is essential to remember their complicity in the Holocaust and to honor the memory of their countless victims. By confronting this dark chapter of history, we reaffirm our commitment—never forget the horrors of the past and strive for a future built on justice, compassion, and human dignity.

Trawniki Men refers to a group of men primarily from the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries. During World War II, the Nazis recruited them. They received their name after the Trawniki Training Camp, located in Poland. It was where they received their indoctrination and military training.

The recruitment of the Trawniki Men began in 1941 as the Nazi regime sought to bolster its forces for the implementation of their genocidal policies, particularly in the occupied territories of Eastern Europe. These men were often former prisoners of war, volunteers, or coerced individuals who were promised better treatment or privileges in exchange for their collaboration.

The primary role of the Trawniki Men was to assist the SS Einsatzgruppen, mobile killing squads tasked with exterminating Jews, Roma, and other targeted groups. They were involved in a range of activities, including rounding up victims, guarding ghettos and concentration camps, and actively participating in mass shootings and deportations. Their knowledge of local languages and terrain made them valuable assets to the Nazi regime in carrying out its murderous campaigns with ruthless efficiency.

The Trawniki Men were directly complicit in some of the most heinous crimes committed during the Holocaust. They played a key role in the systematic murder of millions of innocent civilians, often showing little hesitation or remorse in carrying out their orders. Their participation in mass shootings, deportations to death camps, and other acts of brutality left an indelible mark on the annals of history.

One infamous example of their involvement in the massacre was at Babi Yar, a ravine near Kiev, Ukraine. There more than 33,000 Jews were slaughtered in two days in September 1941. Trawniki men were among those responsible for carrying out the executions, demonstrating the extent of their culpability in the Holocaust.

With the end of World War II and the collapse of the Nazi regime, many Trawniki Men attempted to evade justice by blending back into civilian life or fleeing to other countries. However, in the ensuing years, efforts were made to identify and prosecute those who had participated in Nazi crimes.

One significant legal case involving the Trawniki Men was the 1961 trial of Ivan Demjanjuk in Israel. Demjanjuk, a former Trawniki guard, was accused of being a notorious guard at the Treblinka Extermination Camp known as “Ivan the Terrible.” Although he denied the charges, he was ultimately convicted in 1988, highlighting the ongoing pursuit of justice for those complicit in the Holocaust.

The legacy of the Trawniki Men serves as a grim reminder of the depths of human depravity and the ease with which ordinary individuals can be drawn into committing acts of unspeakable evil under the influence of authoritarian regimes. Their collaboration with the Nazis underscores the importance of vigilance in the face of tyranny and the necessity of holding perpetrators of genocide accountable for their actions.

Sources

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/trawniki

https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2020/01/23/how-department-justice-team-exposed-nazis-hiding-america

https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article-abstract/25/1/1/674673

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The Evil of Colonne Henneicke

The Evil of Colonne Henneicke

Regrets, Disappointment, Disillusionment

The National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (abbreviation: NSB) was a Dutch political party that existed from 1931 to 1945. The NSB adhered to the ideology of National Socialism, presented itself not as a party but as a movement based on an anti-democratic attitude, and functioned as a collaboration party during the German occupation of the Netherlands in the Second World War.

One of their slogans was “Freedom, Justice, Welfare.”

Some of their members learned that Freedom, Justice, and Welfare were not quite what they thought they would be. As part of their collaboration with their German counterparts, the Nazis, members of the NSB were also expected to work in Germany. Following is the text of a letter from someone called Dolly, believed to be the daughter of an NSB family.

Dolly soon learned that the “real” slogan for the NSB should have been “Regrets, disappointment, disillusionment.”

November 19, 1942.

Dear Father and Mother,

Finally some messages from me. However, I have to write too quickly, in between my work. I am fortunate enough to give this letter to a Dutchman who is going on leave tomorrow afternoon for 14 days in Leiden. However, he puts this letter on the bus at Eindhoven station. I hope you get it on Saturday, otherwise on Sunday. Now, I can finally write what I want. Please do not pay any attention to what I have written in my previous letters as they are all lies, and I had to write them.

Dear Father and Mother, I am very nervous—every night, there is chaos. I have already been to the Labor Office here a hundred times, including to the doctor, but everything is in vain. I feel so terribly homesick for home. I only weigh 45 kilos, so I have lost 15 kilos, which says something about my height. Now, there is only one way that you can help me get out of here, and that is only a statement from a doctor from home that I am needed there, can get me out of here. Mother, please be so kind as to try it with Doctor Alphen v.d. Veer.

I’m simply exhausted, if I have to stay here any longer I will go crazy with fear and will definitely commit suicide. You are truly my last hope. I have to thank you for the lovely apples. They were very bruised—but did me good anyway. I’m still in the kitchen, from six in the morning until half past nine in the evening, with fifteen minutes of rest to eat. I’m as weak as a dishcloth. We don’t have any free time at all, even working all day on Sundays. How terribly wrong I was about these people. Now I have to pay for it too. The chef throws one insult after another at me. For example: “You foreigners are not good enough to be dragged around by the hair. We are the master race, now and forever, just swallow that with a calm face.”

If you are successful, Father should go to the Labor Office. I believe they will tell you what is so necessary for an explanation. A telegram works more reliably here. Two Dutch girls have already gotten away this way. I now wait every day for the answer that will save me. Help me, please. I am also so alone here that I can hardly do anything. I feel like a prisoner who is allowed to get some fresh air. Father and Mother do not abandon me now. I know I don’t deserve it. But I really want to make it right. I have to finish now, they are already calling me again. In any case, do not leave anything in your letters that I have written, because it will not get through and is dangerous. So see you soon, but I sincerely hope that I can say, see you again.

Your daughter Dolly,
Please help anyway.

Sources

https://www.archieven.nl/nl/zoeken?mivast=0&mizig=210&miadt=298&miaet=1&micode=247&minr=2109207&miview=inv2

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/niod-instituut-voor-oorlogs–genocide–en-holocauststudies-niod-institute-for-war-genocide-and-h_postbusniod-activity-7049744780850835456-GvlG/?trk=public_profile_like_view&originalSubdomain=nl

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Colonne Henneicke

These Dutchmen were the most despicable breed of men. They were not driven by any political ideology—but purely by greed.

Wim Henneicke was part of a group of bounty hunters called Colonne Henneicke. He betrayed and robbed Jews; between 8,000 and 9,000 Jews were betrayed by the group in 1943. Towards the end of the war, he began to pass on the names of other collaborators and infiltrators within the resistance to resistance members, most likely with hopes of building friendly contacts with the resistance. Wim Henneicke was a 33-year-old former car mechanic with shady contacts in the underworld.

Dutch Jew hunters started to track down and arrest their Jewish fellow citizens in the spring of 1943. The arrested Jews were then deported to the Auschwitz and Sobibor extermination camps, where most of them were murdered. Colonne Henneicke was a group of more than fifty Dutch people led by Wim Henneicke.

To track down Jews—a bounty of 7.50 guilders was paid for each reported Jew in the spring of 1943. In the autumn of 1944, this rose to 40 guilders.

Compared to other rewards, this amount was small but still led to the deportation of many Jewish people in hiding. On top of the other anti-Jewish measures, which led to the isolation and robbery of Dutch Jews, this bounty made hiding even more difficult and dangerous. In some cases, people in hiding were betrayed by the very people hiding them.

You can get a good idea of Colonne Henneicke’s working method because much of the administration has been preserved. In 1947, numerous documents were found in boxes in the basement of the Main Synagogue at Tulpstraat 19 in Amsterdam. However, it is unknown how they ended up here. Among other things, the payment forms for handing in Jews, as well as short reports about the arrests, were found here. These reports indicate who is arrested, where, with whom the person is hiding and whether the people providing shelter know that the people in hiding are Jewish.

This is an example of one of those reports

dated February 24, 1943, states:

“Subject: Jewish refugees Vos.

We have been informed confidentially that Aryan Jan Overduijn has an apartment in Amsterdam, Haarlemmerstraat 62 IV, and has hidden furniture belonging to Jews there. Upon investigation of the said apartment, we found that 4 Jews were also hidden there. We then called the Dutch police, and they arrested the Jews and handed them over to the SD branch in Amsterdam, department IV B.

The Jews are:

Salomon Vos was born 07-09-1914 in Amsterdam—a professional tailor, married, last lived in Amsterdam, Burmanstraat 15 I.

Sophia Vos nee Gold was born 10-08-1917 in Amsterdam, wife of the first mentioned.

Announcement of Salomon’s (Sal) and Sofia’s (Fie) engagement

Reason: The above-mentioned Jews hid with the Aryan Jan Overduijn, born on November 15, 1915, in Amsterdam, living in Amsterdam, Haarlemmerstraat 62 IV. The Jews did not wear a star and were also in possession of false IDs. A special arrest report has been drawn up against the Aryan Jan Overduijn.

Amsterdam, February 24, 1943. Employees of the Central Bureau for Jewish Emigration, Amsterdam, Criminal Investigation Department. FA. from Tol. and H. Klinkenbijl.”

The employees of Colonne Henneicke had different ways to track down their victims, the largest source of information was tips from the population. Sometimes people in hiding were betrayed by their fellow citizens, as can be read in the messages. Sometimes people in hiding were even betrayed by the people who gave them shelter, for fear of being discovered and punished or of receiving part of the bounty.

If there was one consolation Wim Henneicke did get what he deserved.

December 8, 1944, at 9 a.m., Wim Henneicke left his home at Linneausparkweg 79 and fetched on his bicycle. He greeted his neighbour Wim Vlaanderen and cycled towards the Hogeweg. A little later, near number 25, a few shots sounded from a porch. Henneicke fell to his death, and the perpetrator ran away.

Sources

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/nl/page/193952/sophia-vos-goud

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/artikel/premiejagers-en-collaborateurs-de-colonne-henneicke

https://www.tracesofwar.com/articles/2620/Column-Henneicke.htm

Liquidatie van een Jodenjager

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Adriana Valkenburg—Prostitute and Collaborator whose Fiancé was Murdered in Mauthausen

Before I go into the main story about Adriana Valkenburg, I have to explain something about prostitution in the Netherlands to put this into context. It has always been acceptable in the Netherlands. However, it was only in 1988 that prostitution was considered a legal profession—but in the year 2000, prostitution was legalized by the government.

Adriana (Jeanne)Valkenburg was born in Schiedam on 10 June 1894, the fourth of fourteen children of Jacob Valkenburg and Adriana Cornelia de Ligt. She had a difficult childhood. Her deeply religious father was violent, while her mother neglected to raise the children. She first came into contact with the police in 1911 when she stole a gold ring.

From age eighteen, Jeanne Valkenburg worked as a costume seamstress at the fashion warehouse Gerzon in Rotterdam. She also went to live in that city after she met the wealthy shipbuilder Jan Pot in 1916. As his mistress, she received generous compensation and a roof over her head. Possibly to escape the pressure of Pot’s sexual needs, Valkenburg married the Jewish businessman Jacob Stibbe, whom she had met recently, that same year, 1916. After a few weeks, Stibbe disappeared without a trace, and she never saw him again. Twelve years later, the divorce was granted. Valkenburg stayed with a sister in the east of the country for six months but restored contact with Jan Pot when she settled in a boarding house on Frederiksplein in Amsterdam in 1918. Pot paid the rent, and depending on her services, Valkenburg received an allowance.

In addition to the contract with Pot, Jeanne Valkenburg had a lucrative practice in the 1920s as a prostitute and later guest housekeeper (whore madam) in her own brothels in Amsterdam and The Hague. That career was boosted by the waiter Arnoldus (Nol) van Leersum, with whom Valkenburg had had a relationship since 1919. Because he was living in her pocket, Valkenburg wanted to get rid of him. Attempts to have him convicted of pimping failed due to the legal wrangling and Valkenburg was freed from Van Leersum in 1933—although it cost her the lion’s share of her fortune.

In 1931, Adriana started a relationship with the Jewish businessman Jacob Acohen. First, he was a customer later, as a love affair.

At the end of December 1938, Adriana was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment for illegal abortion—a practice which she had started in the mid-1930s in addition to her brothel operation at Noorder Amstellaan 52. After her release in June 1939, she was in financial ruin: she lost Pot’s financial support and her brothels were closed down. Valkenburg rented a room in Van Ostadestraat and had to contact Social Services. Now 45 years old, she maintained herself as a street prostitute for some time.

Shortly after Valkenburg and Acohen got engaged to be married on 17 March 1942, Acohen was arrested by the SD. He was murdered on 29 June 1942 in Mauthausen.

During the war, Valkenburg was an opportunist. In 1942, Adriana helped Jews find a hiding place in her own house on Van Ostadestraat for financial compensation. When she was arrested for this in 1943, she started working as a V-Frau for the occupiers. To avoid persecution, the Jews were brought to the infamous Jewish Affairs Bureau. She reportedly betrayed several dozen people in this way.

Valkenburg moved to Zuider Amstellaan 120 in 1943 because a fellow collaborator had been assassinated by the resistance. When she moved, she met the handyman Joop Bom, with whom she started a relationship and later married. She collaborated with him in betraying Jews.

After Mad Tuesday, 5 September 1944, Valkenburg fled with her partner to Bergen op Zoom, where her sister lived. The couple was arrested there—at the request of her sister on 31 March 1945, and they were taken to Meilust Internment Camp.

In total, Jeanne Valkenburg was estimated to have betrayed fifty Jews, including the relatives of her ex-lover Louis Ritmeester. At least 33 of Valkenburg’s victims died. On 3 July 1947, she was sentenced to death by the Special Court of Justice in Amsterdam, a sentence that was confirmed in 1949 by the Special Court of Cassation. Yet she was pardoned. That same year, the sentence was commuted to life in prison. Ten years later, in 1959, the detention period was shortened to 22 years, after which Valkenburg was released in January 1960. In total, she had been imprisoned for almost fifteen years.

During her detention, Jeanne the Liar kept her reputation alive. She caused a lot of mischief in the air yard and in the sewing room of the Noordsingel penitentiary in Rotterdam by recruiting and inciting newcomers, according to a social work report in 1958. In her last years, Valkenburg led a secluded life at various addresses in Amsterdam and the border village of Putte (N.Br.). She no longer had contact with family except her half-brother, Jules de Ligt, who took care of her. In the 1960s, she ended up in a wheelchair because she became obese. Ultimately, Valkenburg, weighing over a hundred kilos, was admitted to the Algemeen Burger Gasthuis (Guesthouse) in Bergen op Zoom, where she died on 19 February 1968.

Sources

https://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/Valkenburg

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/tijdlijn/Adriana-Valkenburg/03/0004

Jeanne de Leugenaarster. De dodelijke intriges van hoerenmadam Adriana Valkenburg

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Moffenmeiden

Moffenmeid is a designation for women who had relationships with German soldiers during the occupation of the Netherlands during World War II, or there was suspicion of their doing so. The word mof is a swear word for German—the English equivalent is Kraut. The women in question were sometimes pro-German or prostitutes, but often they were women who happened to like a German man. After the liberation, many Moffenmeiden had their hair cut off or their heads shaved publicly.

In the Netherlands, many places exhibited hatred, anger, sadness and frustration during the five long years of occupation. The Dutch unleashed their venom on these women.

Some people may disagree with me, but, I think this was another despicable chapter in Dutch history. Many women sought out relationships with German soldiers to ensure their survival.

It is easy for people to judge when they have not been in a similar situation. I understand how some may say, especially survivors of camps, that these women got what they deserved. On the other hand, there was an element of hypocrisy because many of those, mainly men, who took it upon themselves to become judge, jury and executioner, had been collaborators. Additionally, some women who had been members of the resistance and had romantic relationships with Nazis only did this as part of their resistance duties, and yet, some of them were also treated like the other Moffenmeiden.

In 1948, an investigation was conducted into abuses in the camps where collaborators were interned after the war. It showed that women accused of collaborating with the occupiers in particular had been systematically abused, humiliated and raped in these camps. This only became clear when the National Archives was able to make the entire research file public for the first time in 2023.

The negative image of women that existed during the occupation was implicitly adopted by historians after the war; they introduced the term sexual collaboration for the phenomenon of Dutch women having a relationship with a German. In the Netherlands and other occupied countries, more extensive research was done in the 1990s into these women and their experiences. This showed that a large proportion of the women had hardly considered the fact that a relationship with a German soldier during the occupation could be a problem. They had just met a nice man. There was often no question of political motivation or opportunism but of naivete.

There was a reason for the public shaving or cutting of the hair. it seemed to be a punishment for a moral misdeed already at the beginning of the Christian era. For example, the Bible says that hair is a woman’s adornment. When this is taken away from the woman, her femininity is gone. People may have remembered that the phenomenon also occurred at the end of the First World War. In Belgium and France, the cutting of hair of women also took place in retaliation

Studies by historians Monika Diederichs and Rianne Oosterom show that an estimated 120,000 to 150,000 women walked with a German. From those relationships, 12,000 to 15,000 children were conceived in the war. The moffenmeiden were often only 16, 17 or 18 years old.

Often as old as the German soldiers, who especially at the beginning of the war exerted a great attraction on the girls. They are, unlike the stiff Dutch boys, romantic, courteous and look good in their tight Wehrmacht uniform. The girls paint a picture of boys who are homesick and reluctant to do military service. Ordinary girls who just fall in love at that age. Little did they know that there was going to be a price to be paid for it.

The women were publicly shaved; often to the point of bleeding because of blunt hand clippers. The heads were then rubbed with pitch or rust-resistant red lead. Some were first locked up in empty buildings before being shaved and examined for possible venereal diseases.

During the humiliations on the street, bystanders cheered or even joined in. Other people were ashamed and couldn’t watch. They did not want to behave as the occupier did.

The persecution of these women is what they call “low-hanging fruit.” There were many Dutch Nazis who got away with murder. Men like Pieter Menten* or Siert Bruins.**

___________________________________________________________________
Footnotes:
*Pieter Nicolaas Menten (26 May 1899 – 14 November 1987) was a Dutch war criminal, businessman, and art collector. Menten was a Nazi collaborator who committed numerous crimes, including murder, on behalf of the regime. After World War II, he was only found guilty of working as an interpreter and served just eight months in prison. Menten lived lavishly in the Netherlands for over 25 years, often storing and selling stolen artwork, before the new evidence was used to re-try him, and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was released in 1985 due to old age and good behavior, and he died in 1987.
**Siert Bruins (2 March 1921 – 28 September 2015), also known as Siegfried Bruns and nicknamed the Beast of Appingedam, was a Dutch member of the SS and SD during World War II. He was sentenced to death in absentia by a Dutch court in 1949 for his murder of Dutch farmer and Resistance member Aldert Klaas Dijkema. Germany refused to render him to the Netherlands. The death sentence was later revised into a lifelong sentence.
Siert Bruins died in September 2015 at the age of 94 in Breckerfeld, Germany.

sources

https://www.omroepbrabant.nl/nieuws/3188571/moffenmeiden-en-landverraders-moesten-eraan-geloven

https://geschiedenislokaal010.nl/bronnen/moffenmeiden

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24365735

https://geschiedenismagazine.nl/moffenmeiden-kaalscheren-een-eeuwenoude-straf

https://archief.ntr.nl/deoorlog/page/mappen/780848/Kaalscheren+Moffenmeiden.html

Reintje Kosmis. Villain?

Now I will not say if I believe Reintje Kosmis was a villain [or not], but I will leave it up to you to decide. I always try to be as non-judgmental as possible in cases like this.

Reintje Kosmis was born 9 May 1900 in Emmen, the Netherlands.

Survival or betrayal is a diabolical dilemma in times of war. Writer and researcher Paul van de Water wrote a book about more than fifty women in the Netherlands and Flanders who were wrong during the Nazi occupation. One of them was Reintje Kosmis. During World War II she walked the fine line between right and wrong.

Reintje Kosmis had a tough childhood. She was born in Weerdingerveen, close to Emmen. Her father was rarely home. As an inland skipper, he was always on the go. She had a brother and two sisters, but we do not know if she got along well with them is not known.

Things were not going well at school. Kosmis was, to put it mildly, not too bright. She was 12 years old when her parents decided to divorce. Her father and his son, Reintje, left for Amsterdam, and she remained in Drenthe with her mother and two sisters. There had to be food on the table, so the young Kosmis had to get to work immediately. Later they move to Odoorn, where her mother’s new husband resided.

“And there she was guilty of theft,” according to writer Van de Water. Arrested—her punishment was prison for six months. She spent four months behind bars, but her reputation was now known as a thief in Odoorn and the surrounding area.

She decided to leave Drenthe, and head for Amsterdam, where she met her future husband. They were married, but after a few years, she divorced. The new relationship proved difficult and also ended in a divorce. Just before the German occupation, she met Salomon Jacobs, a well-to-do Jewish man. They married in May 1941 and relocated to Groningen.

Salomon Jacobs had previously been married to Adriana van Kralingen. They were divorced on 13 February 1935 in The Hague, when the persecution of the Jews also began. Jacobs was arrested and sent to Auschwitz, where the Nazis murdered him on 31 May 1944. Kosmis was left alone in the house as impoverished as her early years. To earn money to put food on the table, she rented rooms and looked for hiding places for Jews.

She’s betrayed, arrested and thrown into prison. There, she’s told, “You can be released, but we want something in return.” Indeed, Kosmis decided to give something back to the Nazis to be released. She betrayed a transport of Jewish people in hiding. They were all arrested, including their helpers.

Kosmis is released and allowed to go home. In her absence, her home was robbed. She reported the burglary to the police, putting her in contact with Jannes Luitje Keijer. He was a rogue police officer responsible for compiling lists of people considered undesirable. to be handed to the Nazis. He also made lists of places where people were hiding and who helped them.

Kosmis befriends Keijer, and together, they pursue an intimate relationship. In the meantime, the resistance also approached Kosmis. They knew that the police officer was dangerous. The resistance asked Kosmis to get information about Keijer. They killed Jannes Luitje Keijer on 22 April 1944. Whether Kosmis provided the information which led to the murder is not known. However, it’s known that she did go to the head of the Sicherheitspolizei, Robert Lehnhoff.

During a meeting in a hotel, Jacobs-Kosmis informed Lehnhoff that Keijer’s murderer would travel to the West by train the next day.

On the day of the murder, Rijnders, a member of the resistance, had told a friend, Tiba Heeren, that he had met and spoken with Keijer on the train. Heeren passed on this news to her friend Reintje Kosmis, who combined several things. Josef Kindel, a German SD officer and Evert Cornelis Drost, a Dutch SD officer, were instructed to arrest Rijnders, who used the name Iterson, on the train. His papers showed he developed resistance activities in Hilversum and the surrounding area. However, he had nothing to do with the assassination. On the night of 25 April 1944, Lehnhoff, Kindel, Drost and driver Mowinski drove with Rijnders to Ten Boer.

In a quiet place on the Damsterdiep, Lehnhoff shot him from a meter away. On Lehnhoff’s orders, the others present, except for Kindel, also fired at Rijnders. The next day, the local police found his remains near Garmerwolde.

The story of Kosmis wasn’t over yet with the murder of resistance fighter Bernard Rijnders. After Robert Lehnhoff committed the murder, she had an intimate relationship with him. She also continued to rent out rooms. She also scammed Jews by pretending to bring them safely to England.

An example of this is the story of the Wertheim sisters. They had to pay four thousand guilders to Kosmis, who told them she’d get them safely to England. As soon as the sisters arrived in Scheveningen, the Sicherheitsdienst picked them up. Via Westerbork, they arrived in Auschwitz, where, one was murdered, and the other survived. After the war, the surviving sister made a heavily incriminating statement against Kosmis. The double game Kosmis played ended on 8 May 1945, upon her arrest. Six months later, she appeared in court. Not only did Wertheim provide an incriminating statement against her, but also Robert Lehnhoff of the Sicherheitspolizei; the man Kosmis was dating.

The public prosecutor demanded the death penalty, but she received a life sentence instead. Kosmis filed multiple pardon requests; they were all rejected. Her release came 20 years later. Ironically she spent the last years of her life renting out rooms.

sources

https://www.wo2slachtoffers.nl/bio/52010/Rijnders-Bernard-Jacques-Cornelis.htm

https://www.rtvdrenthe.nl/nieuws/14610782/hoe-de-drentse-reintje-kosmis-joden-hielp-maar-ze-ook-net-zo-makkelijk-verraadde

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/en/page/28959/salomon-jacobs

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Today marks the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. I think that not enough is actually told about the revolt. Those who resisted knew they didn’t really stand a chance. Yet they fought valiantly.

The ŻOB(Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa-Jewish Combat Organization) fighters were armed with only pistols, grenades, many of which were homemade, and a few automatic weapons and rifles. There were only a few hundred of them. Marek Edelman, the only ŻOB commander who survived, said their inspiration to fight was “not to allow the Germans alone to pick the time and place of our deaths”

On April 19, 1943, Himmler sent in SS forces and their collaborators with tanks and heavy artillery to liquidate the Warsaw ghetto. The collaborators were the so-called ‘Trawniki’ men, Soviet prisoners of war who were offered a way out of captivity by cooperating with the SS as Hilfswilligen (relief troops). The ones who accepted the offer were mainly anti-communist and antisemitic Ukrainians, Latvians, and Lithuanians. They were trained in Trawniki and deployed from September 1941 onwards. As the war with the Soviet Union became less successful and the number of prisoners of war dwindled, regular civilians were recruited as well.

Trawniki men look down at the bodies of several murdered Jews lying in a doorway.

Despite being heavily outnumbered, the uprising would take nearly a month to be suppressed. A total of 13,000 Jews were killed, about half of them burnt alive or suffocated. German casualties were probably fewer than 150.

SS and Police Leader, Jürgen Stroop, led the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. His internal SS daily report for Friedrich Krüger, written on 16 May 1943, stated:

“180 Jews, bandits and sub-humans, were destroyed. The former Jewish quarter of Warsaw is no longer in existence. The large-scale action was terminated at 20:15 hours by blowing up the Warsaw Synagogue. … Total number of Jews dealt with was 56,065, including both Jews caught and Jews whose extermination can be proved. Apart from 8 buildings (police barracks, hospital, and accommodations for housing working parties), the former Ghetto is completely destroyed. Only the dividing walls are left standing where no explosions were carried out”

To symbolize the German victory, Stroop ordered the destruction of the Great Synagogue View This Term in the Glossary on Tłomackie Street on May 16, 1943. The ghetto itself lay in ruins.

There are many images of the uprising, but in my opinion, there is none such powerful as the one below.

A Jewish man leaps to his death from the top-story window of a burning apartment block rather than face capture on April 22.

The original German caption said, “The bandits escape arrest by jumping.”

It amazes me that the Nazis were so boastful. They had several thousand troops, including tanks and heavy artillery, and it took them nearly a month to claim victory. Victory over a few hundred resistance fighters, armed with only some rifles and self-made grenades.

Stroop’s report also backfired on him because it was used as evidence after the war.

sources

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/warsaw-ghetto-uprising

https://www.history.com/news/holocaust-warsaw-ghetto-uprising-ringelblum-archive

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/warsaw-ghetto-uprising

https://www.annefrank.org/en/timeline/154/trawniki-training-camp-for-camp-guards/

https://allthatsinteresting.com/warsaw-ghetto-uprising#1

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/trawniki

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The one thing I always fear when I do these blogs about World War II and the Holocaust is what I will discover about my family. Thus far, there is no indication that any of them collaborated with the Nazis, but I have a big family, and even now, in 2023, there is still new information surfacing from World War II.

A most extensive and yet, at the same time—the most kept hidden archive of the Netherlands is the Central Archive for Special Judicial Safety (CABR). This archive covers four linear kilometres and holds 540,000+ files from Dutch people who were wrong during the Second World War. The estimate is that one in three Dutch citizens had a family member who worked for or collaborated with the Nazis.

The perpetrators usually kept silent after the war against their children about what they—exactly—had done. The children and grandchildren often only heard from other sources that their parents or grandparents had collaborated with the Nazis during the occupation. Today, we can shatter their ignorance because we can now consult the National Archive. There are four kilometres of archive material about the many thousands arrested after the war because of their questionable role in the war.

I want to focus on one of the half a million wrong Dutch citizens, mainly because there is a link with Ireland, where I now live.

Pieter Menten
Born in 1899, Pieter Menten was a wealthy Dutch businessman and prominent art collector who bought the secluded Comeragh House in Waterford in 1964.

He was well-known among the local community, but he held a secret.

Menten built up much of his business empire trading between his native Netherlands and Poland. For example, he was a significant importer of lumber. He lived in Eastern Poland from 1923 until 1939, when the Soviet Union invaded.

Two years later, he returned to Poland after the Nazi counter-occupation, this time as a member of the SS.

Menten was involved in the massacre of Polish professors in Lviv and the robbery of their property. According to witnesses, he helped shoot as many members of the offending family in Galicia, then turned on other Jews in the area. It is believed that Menten personally oversaw the execution of as many as 200 Jews.

While travelling on his personal train with his prized art collection, Menten was recognized by Dutch Resistance fighters and arrested. They brought him to trial. His chief defence lawyer was Rad Kortenhorst, President of the Dutch House of Representatives. The controversial trial concluded in 1949, with the prosecution unable to prove most allegations and sentenced to an eight-month term for having worked in uniform as a Nazi interpreter. In 1951, the Dutch government refused a Polish request for his extradition.

Menten would go on to become a successful art collector and businessman. His 20-room mansion contained valuable artwork (Nicolaes Maes, Francisco Goya, Jan Sluyters, etc.), and he held vast areas of real estate.

Menten’s background was kept hidden while he lived much of his time in Ireland. It all became public in 1976 when they arrested him for his crimes in Holland. He claimed a case of mistaken identity but was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in jail.

A 2011 article about the Comeragh House property in the Irish Times claims that the estate was damaged by arson attacks during his imprisonment, which some believe were orchestrated by Mossad, the Israeli security service. The property was known to have been raided by hopeful art thieves. They had gambled on the truth to the rumours that the art collection was still somewhere in the house.

In 1976, they reopened the Menten case. During the trial, his mansion was set ablaze after a survivor of Dachau Concentration Camp threw a petrol bomb onto its thatched roof. The building suffered extensive damage, including part of the art collection.^[3] In 1980 Menten was sentenced to 10 years in prison and was fined 100,000 guilders for war crimes, including being an accessory to the murder of 20 Jewish villagers in 1941 Poland.

Upon his release in 1985, he believed he would settle in his County Waterford mansion in Ireland, only to find out Garret FitzGerald, Taoiseach (prime minister) at the time, had barred him from the country. The exclusion order was later signed by Justice Minister Michael Noonan, from Limerick. Menten died at a seniors‘ home in Loosdrecht, Netherlands. He was 88 years old.

Finding Comeragh House isn’t easy. The house, as claimed, is indeed “hidden from all eyes and cannot be seen from any of the surrounding roads.” The approach is along a private 1km-long tarmac drive flanked by mature rhododendrons and laurels, which passes a lake with an island. It continues via a tree-lined avenue facing sloping parkland with cedars, oak and horse chestnut trees before reaching the gravelled front entrance to the main house. This secluded location presumably appealed to the previous owner, Pieter Menten, who bought the estate in 1964.

Sources

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/03/21/Ireland-bans-return-of-war-criminal/9240293920078/

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/homes-and-property/new-to-market/true-brits-sell-nazi-s-former-home-in-waterford-1.565850

https://www.thejournal.ie/pieter-menten-2500370-Jan2016/

https://regioonline.nl/binnenland/dossiers-300000-foute-nederlanders/

https://decorrespondent.nl/1118/wat-het-archief-van-foute-nederlanders-ons-leert-over-ons-oorlogsverleden/95837305564-b627e06b

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The Evil of Colonne Henneicke

The photograph above is of Wim Henneicke, a bounty hunter and collaborator. His wasn’t driven by hate or by a warped sense of nationalism but by greed. Wim Henneicke was part of a group called “Colonne Henneicke.” The Colonne Henneicke, officially the Hausraterfassungsstelle, was a group of Dutch collaborators who were active as bounty hunters in the period between March and October 1943. The group consisted of more than fifty Dutch people who were paid to hunt Jewish people in hiding and was led by Wim Henneicke. In the six months that the organization existed, it was responsible for the deportation of eight to nine thousand people.

They were paid 7,50 Dutch guilders (the 2023 equivalent would be $62 or €58) for each Jew that was caught, regardless if it was a man, woman or child.

One of their victims was Charles Salomon Viskoop, born on 17 February 1943. In December 1943, two members of the Kolonne Henneicke found Charles Salomon at his hiding place. He was ten months old at the time. He was murdered on 28 January 1944, in Auschwitz just over a month before his first birthday.

However, Henneicke did not live to see the end of the war. On December 8, 1944, he left his home in Amsterdam in the morning and was shot dead by an unknown member of the Amsterdam resistance.

I want to focus on 2 more members of the Colonne Henneicke.

Dries Riphagen

Bernardus Andries Riphagen, known as “the Dutch Al Capone,” was even more unscrupulous than his American gangster counterpart. The man was a criminal through and through. Riphagen’s fingers were in a lot of pies in the Dutch criminal underworld, from prostitution to extortion to murder. He spent two years in the United States, first working for Standard Oil and then getting in touch with local criminal groups.

During the war, Riphagen continued with trading and expanded his business by working with the Germans as an intermediary agent of the intelligence agency of the SS, the Sicherheitsdienst (or SD), in The Hague. As more anti-Jewish policies were introduced, the collaboration between Riphagen and the Germans became more and more lucrative. When Jewish people were arrested, their property, stocks, jewellery and cash were taken before the arrestees, and the remaining household items were handed over to the Germans.

Riphagen ran clandestine roulette houses, offered “ladies of pleasure” to accommodate high German officials and traded in currency, gold and diamonds on the black market with his old friends from the Rembrandt Square such as Joop Out, ‘Manke’ (Criple) Toon Kuijper, Harry Rond and Gerrit Verbeek. Having climbed the ladder from an undercover agent to a bona fide employee, Riphagen decided to join the Devisenschutzkommando (DSK), part of the Central Office for Jewish Emigration. The most important function of the DSK was to counteract the increasing instances of black market trading in shares. Another function was to gather the Jewish possessions that had escaped the German currency regulations. Members of the DSK received 5 to 10% of the possessions gathered in return for their work. In reality, however, most of the goods discovered ended up in the hands of individual members. From 1943 onwards Riphagen was part of the ‘Column Henneicke’

It is believed that Riphagen personally executed Wim Baggers and John Even, two resistant fighters. Baggers and Even were arrested in September 1944 and handcuffed to each other on the Amsteldijk with a shot to the neck they were executed.

The commemoration took place three weeks after the liberation.

He managed to flee the Netherlands after the war.

Always as slippery as an eel, in February 1946 Riphagen escaped, leaving his wife and son behind without a second thought. Rumour has it that his underworld friends smuggled him across the border in a hearse. Another theory is that two Dutch secret service men, Frits and Piet Kerkhoven, organized his escape to Belgium with a hearse. From Belgium, he spent three months travelling to Spain by bicycle.

When Riphagen reached Spain in May 1946, the authorities in Huesca stopped him due to a lack of necessary identification. He was imprisoned, but again luck never left him. He was released on bail with the help of a Jesuit priest. Shortly after that, Frits Kerkhoven gave him clothes and shoes, which were hidden in the necessary papers as well as diamonds that Riphagen had previously left with Kerkhoven.

When Justice finally discovered his location in Madrid, Riphagen flew to Argentina with a friend on March 21, 1948. The Dutch ambassador to Buenos Aires at the time, Floris Carcilius Anne Baron van Pallandt, filed an extradition request. However, it was denied by the Argentina Judicial Authorities due to a lack of evidence–again, the crime against humanity got away scot-free.

Riphagen was never extradited to the Netherlands. Always gregariously silver-tongued, he maintained friends in high places. One was a member of the Argentine Supreme Court, Rodolfo Valenzuela, who also served as secretary to President Juan Perón.

Thanks to Valenzuela, Riphagen soon befriended the presidential couple. He kept in close contact with Perón until his death. Belgrano, a district of Buenos Aires, soon became his home where he ran a photo-press business. Also, he supported the Perón secret service whenever he could.

When Perón was removed from power, Riphagen returned to Europe where he spent his time travelling, especially in Spain, Switzerland, and Germany. He kept the company of wealthy women who could support his expensive tastes and continued to talk his way through life. His last known address was in Madrid.

Finally, in 1973 Dries Riphagen, probably the worst Dutch war criminal, died of cancer in Montreux, Switzerland.

Netflix released a movie about Riphagen a few years ago

https://www.netflix.com/ie/title/80106138

Sera de Croon

De Croon was known to be particularly fanatical and sadistic, he mistreated Jews and even personally brought Jewish babies to the Germans. At parties, he liked to show a captured pre-war holiday film of a Jewish family that he had reported. After the Colonne Henneicke was disbanded because the work was done, De Croon moved to the east of the country. He was especially good at infiltrating various resistance groups and was behind the arrest of several resistance members. In Nijverdal, for example, the resistance member Herman Kampman was arrested and later shot. De Croon abused many of his victims.

After the liberation, De Croon couldn’t be found at first. He was finally arrested in 1948 and sentenced to death in 1949. However, this sentence was not carried out after Queen Juliana pardoned him. First, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, later this sentence was commuted to 21 years, of which he only had to serve two-thirds. As a result, he was released again in the early 1960s. De Croon was traced to Alicante in Spain in 1983, where he died in 1990 from lung cancer.

It was Sera de Croon who delivered 10-month-old Charles Salomon Viskoop to the Nazis.

Sources

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/beelden/detail/d53a7ac2-0259-11e7-904b-d89d6717b464/media/756fa92b-6824-02e1-7027-a30c92de89d8?mode=detail&view=horizontal&q=Henneicke&rows=1&page=1

https://www.maxvandam.info/humo-gen/family/1/F48400?main_person=I128467

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/dries-riphagen-dutch-criminal.html?chrome=1

https://www.tracesofwar.com/articles/2624/Riphagen-Dries.htm

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/tijdlijn/Dries-Riphagen/03/0004

https://wiesjekuijpers.nl/projecten/het-was-oorlog

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/tijdlijn/Sera-de-Croon/03/0004

Click to access Handleiding%20docenten_%20WOII%20%28VO%29_DEF.pdf

https://www.joodsmonument.nl/en/page/603/kolonne-henneicke