Holland: Jewish deportees were taxed during imprisonment

217 Amsterdam Jews, survivors of the Holocaust, found out, upon returning home from Nazi work camps, that they owed the city council back rents and taxes on the houses the Germans had stolen from them. Moreover, they were also charged with extra fees for not paying rent in due time.

‘They were completely expropriated. And then, after the Second World War, they were taxed for the period in which they didn’t enjoy the house, and where they had not the ownership of the house. And not only were they taxed, they had also to pay fines on it,’ says the former director of the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, Ronnie Nathaniel.

This is what Charlotte van den Berg discovered from letters of complaint she found while scanning through city archives, four years ago.

Today, after a long and lonely battle, Charlotte van den Berg got justice, obtaining public recognition.

Jewish people’s homes were often sold to Dutch collaborators. Almost 75% of the Jewish Dutch population was deported, partly thanks to the efficient civil system.