1

Dutch civil law notaries and the anti-Jewish measures 1940-1945 Transactions of confiscated Jewish property in time and space. An empirical approach.

1

Raymund Schütz, M.A., Ph.D.-candidate,

Supervisor Prof. Dr. Wouter Veraart

Vrije Universiteit

Law Faculty, dep. Legal Theory and Legal History

De Boelelaan 1105

1081 HV Amsterdam

e-mail address: r.schutz@vu.nl

Introduction: collaboration and civil law notaries in the Netherlands

The anti-Jewish measures in the Netherlands like the expropriation of Jewish property were instigated

by order of the German occupying authorities (Reichskommisariat) nonetheless they were mainly

organised and executed by the Dutch administrative and legal system. The post-war tribunals for

special justice considered ‘collaboration’ to be almost synonymous with membership of the radical

national socialist NSB-movement (Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging). But what if hard evidence of

that behaviour pointed in another direction: namely, that non-NSB members were also collaborating

on a large scale with the German occupier? The case analysed here is that of Notarissen, Dutch civil

law notaries2 who formalized transactions of Jewish owned property by drafting and authenticating

deeds. The professional behaviour of notaries can be analysed individually since the registers and

forms referring to these transactions were kept in archives. Dutch notaries were public functionaries

appointed by the Minister of Justice. An obvious question is if notaries were lured by financial gain

since they earned their living by charging fees for their services. In that case we are talking about

economic collaboration. The principle question this case demonstrates is the fundamental difference of

judgment by the post-war legal system of ideological collaboration and economic cooperation.

Notaries were well-organised and the position of their fellowship Broederschap der notarissen

in Nederland influenced the decisions of individual notaries, when they were confronted with a

request to authenticate the transfer of Jewish property. What was the attitude of the leadership of the

governing body to the anti-Jewish measures, and how did that relate to the attitude of other Dutch

authorities? In the analysis of the findings in my dissertation I will draw heavily on the theoretical

framework of Zygmunt Baumann, who pointed out that the Holocaust can only be understood as a

consequence of modern society and not as a barbaric anomaly.3

1 I would like to thank Hannah Berliner Fischthal, St. Johns University, NYC, and Ruud Weissmann, associate

researcher at NIOD, Amsterdam, for their stimulating and critical remarks. 2 In the Dutch legal system civil law notaries are qualified legal professionals. They are entirely distinct from the

profession of notary public in the United States and other common law countries. When the terms notary or

notaries are used in the article, it refers to civil law notaries. 3 Zygmunt Baumann, Modernity and the Holocaust (Oxford 2000) passim.

2

An interesting question that I will focus on here concerns the notaries who were sympathising with or

who were members of the national-socialist movement NSB. Were these notaries, because of their

ideological conviction more involved in the trade of Jewish property than the ones who were not

related or sympathetic to the NSB? Maybe the behaviour of Dutch notaries can only partly be

explained by the special circumstances in times of war, occupation and repression. Their conduct may

also be understood as a function of their social position in the bureaucracy.

After 1990 the topic of spoliation and restitution of Jewish property was researched in depth in

the Netherlands. Gerard Aalders published two volumes: Roof 4 and Berooid.

5 The legal topic of

restitution in the Netherlands and France was analysed in depth by Wouter Veraart in his dissertation.6

The role of notaries in the post-war process of restitution was the subject of Kor Meijer’s dissertation.7

In his recent study historian Maarten-Jan Vos looked at the post-war legal process of restitution.8

Martin Dean proved in his comprehensive study that stealing the Jews’ money and their property was

a fundamental component of the mass murder of the Jews in Europe.9 The attention of holocaust

research has recently shifted to the micro-level. Micro-history deals with the moral questions about the

delicate relations and interactions among victims, perpetrators, decision makers and witnesses.10

The absence of the role of notaries in the historiography of Jewish property expropriation is

remarkable, to say the least. Notarial archives of all ages are frequently used in historiography, sine

authentic acts are recorded in the notary's protocol and a registration of these acts is also kept. Micro-

history of a topic like collaboration can only be valid if the related sources are ‘rich’, i.e. if they hold

detailed and authentic information about the behaviour of people, preferably in time. The archives of

notaries certainly answer to that requirement- but access is limited.

Civil law notaries and the Dutch legal system

The position of the Dutch notary in the first half of the twentieth century was quite a delicate one.

Historically, the profession had attained a special position in the legal system. A notary’s impartiality

benefitted both the seller and the buyer, by providing legal security for both parties in a transaction.

This distinguished a notary from a solicitor, who defended the interest of a party, and also from the

judiciary who actively settled disputes. It was the notary’s responsibility to secure the equality of

4 Gerard Aalders, Roof. De ontvreemding van joods bezit tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog (Amsterdam 1999).

5 Gerard Aalders, Berooid. De beroofde joden en het Nederlandse restitutiebeleid sinds 1945 (Amsterdam 2001)

6 Wouter. J. Veraart, Ontrechting en rechtsherstel in Nederland en Frankrijk in de jaren van bezetting en

wederopbouw, Ph.D.-thesis, EUR Rotterdam; (Deventer 2005). 7 Kor Meijer, E100 en de naoorlogse rechtspraak met betrekking tot onroerend goed (Nijmegen 2008)

8 Maarten-Jan Vos en Serge ter Braake, Rechtsherstel na de Tweede Wereldoorlog van geroofd Joods onroerend

goed. Inzicht in een administratief proces (Amsterdam 2013). 9 Martin Dean, Robbing the Jews: The Confiscation of Jewish Property in the Holocaust, 1933–1945 (Cambridge

2008). 10

C. Zalc, T. Bruttmann, I. Ermakoff & Nicola Mariot, Pour une microhistoire de la Shoah humain. Le genre

humain ( Paris 2012); see also Omer Bartov, ‘The Micro-history of Genocide: tracing the origins of genocide in

the complexities of interethnic relations over a long time span in the Eastern Galician town of Buczacz’.

https://research.brown.edu/research/project.php?id=1142205424 [viewed 27-6-2013].

3

rights. While all judges and solicitors held university degrees in law, this was the case only for a

relatively small number of notaries.11

The first university course on notarial law was realised in 1938.

Traditionally prospective notaries were educated in private schools led by notaries, which in the

twentieth century became an outdated educational system. Partly because of the absence of a

comprehensive legal perspective and partly because they considered themselves to be inferior to

solicitors and judges, the notary’s impartiality ossified into passivity. In practice this meant that, even

if a notary suspected that something was wrong with a transaction he was requested to formalise, he

executed the deed anyway. This culture of passivity combined with failing financial supervision led to

a high number of bankruptcies in the 1920s and, after new rules, still some major failings of notaries in

the 1930s. These cases were however treated as isolated incidents by both the profession and the

Ministry of Justice. As a result of the economic crisis the financial solidity of many notaries eroded

during the 1930s. The underlying problems of the ethics of the notarial profession were not recognised

and therefore not tackled in any way, not by the government, not by the fellowship of notaries.

The administration and alienation of Jewish property

Three weeks after the German military invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940, the civilian regime

led by Reichskommissar Seyβ-Inquart was installed. The Dutch administrative apparatus remained in

place and directed its efforts to maintaining law and order and returning the country to normalcy. The

Dutch government went into exile in London after instructing the chief civil servants in the ministries

(secretaries-general) to stay at their posts and to continue their work, on condition they adhered to the

existing laws and constitution. The effect was that the occupier took over a completely operational

administration.12

From the summer of 1940 the German Reichskommissariat infused anti-Semitic

regulations into the legal system. Jews were defined by decree on October 22. The Dutch civil service

as a whole showed the compliance that would have fateful consequences for the Jews.13

How was the alienation of Jewish property in the Netherlands organised and administrated?

The Reichskommissar on 31 May 1941 founded the Vermögensverwaltungs- und Rentenanstalt (Asset

Management and pension company, VVRA), which would process all the proceeds of confiscated

Jewish property. The Niederländische Grundstückverwaltung (Dutch Land Management, NGV) which

was to take all the Jewish property was set up in 1941 using the legal know-how of the prominent

Amsterdam notary Groenier.14

The first ‘Liro’-decree of 8 August 1941 compelled all Jews to transfer

their cash to the Liro-bank, which in fact was a robbery hoax (not a bank) controlled by the Nazis.15

11

Ron de Jong, Tussen ambt en vrij beroep. Het notariaat tussen 1842 en 1999 (Amsterdam 2002) 2 12

Gerard Aalders, ‘Organized looting in the Netherlands‘, in: Eds. Gerald D. Feldman and Wolfgang Seibel,

Networks of Nazi-persecution. Bureaucracy, Business and the Organization of the Holocaust (New York,

Oxford 2004) 168-188, here: 181. 13

Saul Friedländer, The years extermination. Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939-1935 (New York 2007) 123. 14

Record of evidence of the hearing of prof. mr. A.Pitlo, coll. NIOD, doc II 249/0152A-12. Reports ‘Bureau

Vooronderzoek Collaboratie Amsterdam’, Carel L. Buenting, file notary Groenier. 15

Gerard Aalders, ‘Organized looting in the Netherlands’, 187.

4

On 16 August 1941 all property owned by Jews was ordered to be declared at the NGV (decree of the

Reichskommissar VO 154). In the same way that they lost control of their cash and objects of value,

the Jews lost control of their property. The NGV was authorized by the decree of the Reichskommissar

to sale property on the market. The demand was high, due to the economic situation of the war.16

The transaction consisted of two phases. In the first place the object had to be transferred from

the administration of the NGV to a private person. This was a local broker of ANBO or Nobiscum.17

Next the object was transferred to a third party, which could be an unsuspecting buyer, but in quite a

number of cases was a well-informed bargain-hunter who resold the object with a nice profit to a

fourth party. For the transfer of property to become legally effective a notarial deed was required by

law, as it was for the mortgage.

Figure 1: by ordinance of VO (Verordnung) 154/41 the property was taken into administration by the Niederländische

Grundstückverwaltung. The Jewish owner effectively lost his rights. The local offices of ANBO and Nobiscum resold

the property. There were close business ties between the ANBO-representative and the brokers, who traded in

property in addition to their daily means of living.

In order to create the authentic deed, the notary had to prepare the process administratively like a

‘normal’ transaction. This meant checking the legal title of the property in the cadastre: who owned it

and if there were mortgages attached to the property. In the cadastral registry the property status was

‘in administration’, but the original Jewish owners were identifiable. The notary was completely aware

of all the contextual information that identified the transactions of Jewish property. Financially, his

assistance in acquiring a mortgage was essential to finalise the deal. And this was all the more the case

when a mortgage was needed to finance the deal. Mortgages were obtained by those notaries who had

16

Hein A.M. Klemann, Nederland 1938-1948. Economie en samenleving in jaren van oorlog en bezetting

(Amsterdam 2002) 389. 17

The Nobiscum office took over parts of the NGV-work, as did the ANBO-offices. G. Aalders, Nazi Looting,

123.

5

a good relation with a mortgage bank and acted as intermediaries. Already in the 1920s and 1930s

notaries acted as financial advisers. In specific cases it can be shown they had close ties with local

rack-renters. In fact, some notaries18

became heavily dependent on interlopers and when these went

bankrupt, the financial position of their notary became awkward. The professional and financial

supervision of notaries was poor. The Ministry of Justice considered failures of notaries as isolated

incidents; the fellowship of notaries Broederschap shifted responsibility back to the ministry.

Figure 2: the transactions and the position of the notary, in this case the Rotterdam notary De Kat. Property was

transferred from ANBO-administration to Knetemann, who transferred property to brokers to buyers, members of

the public (P).

As is evident from fig. 2 the notary was present at the formal stages of the alienation process. He was

also aware of the proprietary rights of the object. It is documented that some notaries doubted if they

could offer their services to these transactions and approached the district courts and the Broederschap

but were given the advice to proceed with reference to the Judgement of the Supreme Court of 12

January 1942.19

The Supreme Court recoiled from appraising whether the legislative acts of the

German occupier were compatible with Art. 43 of the Hague agreements. These stated that an

occupying power in an occupied territory must restore and maintain public order and civil life

including public welfare. The Supreme Court of the Netherlands however, relinquished its right to

review in its judgment of January 1942; passivity was apparently not the monopoly of notaries. This

meant that the German measures to persecute the Jews were considered to be legal and the spoliation

18

A case that investigated in detail in my dissertation is that of the Rotterdam Notary E.J.M. de Kat. 19

Raymund Schütz, ‘Achter gesloten deuren. Het Nederlandse notariaat, de Jodenvervolging en de naoorlogse

zuivering’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis (2010), II, 62-77, here 66.

6

of Jewish property could proceed. This judgment was criticised severely by jurists during the war, and

that was also the case after the war.20

Quantifiable data

Before assessing the conduct of a group of professionals it is necessary to quantify that behaviour.

Fortunately for the historian, civil law notaries were (as they are today) obliged by law to record their

deeds in registers. These registers were kept by notaries and were also (in duplicate) transferred on a

yearly basis to the notaries’ supervision chambers of the district courts of law. These registers are still

being kept in archives. Since they contain all the transactions it would be quite a job to sort out only

the suspicious ones. However, during the post-war purge all notaries in the Netherlands were required

to specify the transactions of Jewish property and attached mortgages in forms.21

This was required by

the Ministry of Justice and the fellowship Broederschap der Notarissen. These forms were scrutinized

after the war in detail by the purge-commissions, and on their basis the repayment of the declarations

per notary for these transactions were calculated. These registers and post-war forms of the notaries

provide us with many details like the date of transaction, the form of the transaction (transfer of

property and/or attaching the mortgage), the sum of money involved, the address of the object and the

buyer. These data give us insight in what the notary knew of the background of the transaction and are

the basis for empirical research.

Transactions in Rotterdam

The port-city Rotterdam had the third-largest Jewish population of the country: 8368 ‘Full Jews’.22

As

table 1 shows only one notary in the court district of Rotterdam did not profit at all from the alienation

of Jewish property. The one unblemished notary concerned was Prof. Gerhard Nauta, who also

practiced as a lawyer and whose customers were mostly large businesses. Real estate dealings were

probably not the core of his legal practice. 23

The group of notaries with moderate earnings of less than

500 guilders was 29 (46,77 %). The other 33 of their colleagues made quite considerable profits.

20

Corjo Jansen, Derk Venema, De Hoge Raad en de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Recht en rechtsbeoefening in de

jaren 1930-1950 (Den Haag 2012) 127. 21

Schütz, ‘Achter gesloten deuren’, 72. 22

Statistiek der Bevolking van Joodschen bloede in Nederland, samengesteld door de Rijksinspectie voor de

bevolkingsregisters aan de hand van de formulieren ingevolge van verordening no. 6/1941 van den Rijks-

commissaris voor het bezette Nederlandsch gebied, tabel 1, 6. 23

His associate notary Lambert earned 3.157,91 guilders from the resale of Jewish property. Interestingly, Prof.

Gerhard Nauta (1884-1967) would become a central figure in the post-war purge and special justice, when he

pleaded as a lawyer for the cases of leading Dutch businessmen and industrialists who were prosecuted for their

dealings with the German authorities. J. Meihuizen, Noodzakelijk kwaad. De bestraffing van economische

collaboratie in Nederland na de Tweede Wereldoorlog (Amsterdam 2003) 454-460.

7

Table 1: Rotterdam notaries’ earnings (guilders) from Jewish property transactions 1941-1945.24

Earnings (guilders) Notaries

%

Lowest

(guilders)

Highest

(guilders)

Average

(guilders)

Total

(guilders)

%

0 1 1,61% 0 0 - 0 0,00%

[1, 100) 8 12,90% 20,00 87,00 54,40

435,23 0,19%

[100, 500) 21 33,87% 107,06 465,00 249,18

5.232,84 2,30%

[500, 1000) 13 20,97% 507,30 834,00 695,59

9.738,24 4,29%

[1000, 10.000) 13 20,97% 1.026,10 7.768,55 3.113,85

40.480,01 17,81%

[10000, 50.000] 6 9,68% 13.068,98 49.504,00 28.560,19

171.361,14 75,41%

Totals 62 100,00% 227.247,46 100,00%

Especially a cluster of 6 notaries (about 10% of the total notarial population in the district) being

responsible for 75 % of the total earnings related to Jewish property in Rotterdam. It was this cluster

of notaries that caught the attention of the special prosecutor after the war. Their skin was saved in the

end by the Minister of Justice himself, who had made a deal with the Broederschap not to prosecute

the notaries if they would recompense a substantial part of their profits (60%).25

Fig. 1: Regular mortgage banks became reluctant to provide loans on resold Jewish property in 1943.

A special mortgagebank was created by the NSB in November 1944: the ‘Landelijke Hypotheekbank’.

On September 5, 1944 (‘Dolle dinsdag’) many rumours spread in the occupied Netherlands that the

liberation by Allied forces was at hand. On September 17, 1944 the Dutch Government in exile

proclaimed the Royal Decree E 100, regarding the Restoration of Rights, 1944.26

24

This table is based on the content of the forms that the notaries were obliged to return to the special purge-

commissions after the war. These were first attached to the district courts and later on to the district associated

committees of the notarial fellowship.. 25

Raymund Schütz, ‘Achter gesloten deuren’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 2010, II, 65-77. 26

Meijer, E 100, xiv, 256.

8

Where do we find the ideologically motivated NSB-notaries in this picture? Among the Rotterdam

notaries there was almost no support for the NSB: only one notary in the city, A.P.W. van Meurs, was

a registered member of the NSB. He was aged 71 in 1942 and suffered from bad health (blindness)

which considerably impeded his productivity. Nevertheless, his turnover in this business totalled

28.145,14 guilders from 139 transfer-deeds and 48 mortgage-deeds. The total value of property that

changed legal ownership through his office was 1.269.895,- guilders, while the total value of the

mortgage deeds was 684.855,-. Remarkable figures indeed, but it only puts him in third place on the

list of notarial profiteers in Rotterdam, with a share of 12% in overall earnings.

Table 2: Jewish property earnings (guilders) of notaries in Rotterdam (court district)

1 2 3 4 5 6

Transfer

Deeds

Property

(guilders)

Mortgage

Deeds

Mortgages

(guilders)

(col. 1+3) Earnings

(guilders)

1. Kat, E.J.M. de 237 4.388.759,50 98 1.130.450,00 335 49.504,00

2. Schuurs, J. 126 289.386,40 64 994.450,00 190 30.914,00

3. Meurs, A.P.W. van (NSB) 89 1.269.895,00 48 684.855,00 137 28.145,14

4. Kuijntjes, G.A.E. 90 3.157.388,00 41 687.480,00 131 22.917,00

5. Waal, mr. I van der 146 1.642.046,00 51 597.600,00 197 26.772,00

6. Prooye, N.P. van 49 1.848.649,00 24 405.600,00 73 13.109,00

7. Schoenmaeckers, G.J.M. 29 796.592,00 9 221.000,00 38 7.768,55

8. Mastrigt, L. van 5 159.100,00 2 216.450,00 7 6.593,28

9. Lis, J.C.S. van 35 436.500,00 0 214.500,00 35 5.476,37

10. Zeylmans v Emmichoven,

H.A.W. 14 397.250,00 13 211.500,00 27 5.315,80

Totals (10 top ten notaries) 820 14.385.565,90 350 5.363.885,00 1170 196.515,14

Percentage of totals (all 62

notaries)

85% 87% 83% 88% 85% 86%

The 10 most active notaries in the business of alienating Jewish property in Rotterdam (only one of

which was an NSB-party member) were responsible for 85% of all transfer-deeds of property.

The conclusion must be that 88% of earnings were made by Rotterdam notaries who were not

motivated by NSB ideology. The successor of S.S. Wijsenbeek, the sole Jewish notary in Rotterdam,

was L. van Mastrigt ranked eighth on this list. All Jewish notaries in the Netherlands were dismissed

by order of the Reichskommissar on February 21, 1941.

9

Property transactions in Amsterdam

Compared to Rotterdam, a different picture emerges for Amsterdam, where the Jewish population was

the largest in the country: 79.497 ‘full-Jews’.27

Seven Jewish notaries were stationed in the city, all of

whom were ousted in February 1941. In 1942 twelve NSB notaries were stationed in the city, some of

whom had taken over Jewish offices. They had to build up a business with new clients, since the

former Jewish clients of these offices were either in hiding, incarcerated or deported. The NSB-

notaries were the keepers of the protocols of their Jewish predecessors and held a considerable part of

all the deeds of transports and mortgages for Jewish property. Reconstructing the transaction-flow in

time is problematic because the administration of three NSB-notaries did not survive the war. One

NSB-notary only destroyed the part of the administration concerning his declarations. His earnings

could be reconstructed on the assumption that he used the fixed notarial tariff-system, because the

values of the properties and mortgages involved were retained. What picture do we get, when we

compare the Amsterdam NSB-notaries involvement in alienating to the non NSB-notaries?

Table 3: Jewish property earnings (guilders) of 9 NSB-notaries in Amsterdam (court district)28

1 2 3 4 5 6

Transfer

deeds

Property value

(guilders)

Mortgage

deeds

Mortgages

Col. 1+3

Earnings

(guilders)

1.Rambonnet, A.A. 251 5.241.661,00 157 2.344.435,00 408 92.952,19

2.Bilderbeek, W.H.van 47 1.602.481,00 29 542.800,00 76 21.144,95

3. Keizer, Klaas 98 2.074.059,60 81 1.181.590,00 179 25.284,70

4. Haan, H.J. de 134 1.963.775,00 71 849.100,00 205 24.688,75

5. Delden, J.J.M. van 14 744.797,00 6 529.000,00 20 20.606,50

6. Roosendaal, L.J. van 18 350.000,00 16 180.500,00 34 5.543,30

7. Meijering, T. 19 329.125,00 14 160.200,00 33 4.807,43

8 Ammers, E.N. van 7 341.500,00 7 175.800,00 14 3.375,91

9. Schepers, J.W.A 0 0,00 0 0,00 0 0,00

Totals 588 12.647.399,00 381 5.963.425,00 969 198.403,70

The table mentions only nine out of twelve NSB-notaries in Amsterdam, since the administration of

the other three was lost.

27

Statistiek der Bevolking van Joodschen bloede in Nederland, tabel 1, 6. 28

As noted before, three NSB notaries destroyed their administration and their earnings are unknown.

10

Table 4: Earnings of Jewish property per non-NSB-notary in Amsterdam (court district)

1 2 3 4 5 6

Transfer

deeds

Property

(guilders)

Mortgage

deeds

Mortgages Col. 1+3 Earnings

(guilders)

1. Graaff, Dirk Jan29

103 2.206.603,65 76 1.515.750,00 179 35.804,52

2. Sierks, S.30

88 2.096.096,00 37 1.128.125,00 125 32.564,63

3. Oosterink, Hendrik31

128 1.429.213,50 75 585.615,00 203 19.342,50

4. Meiners, J.D.32

66 1.467.760,82 22 432.200,00 88 15.069,81

5. Bie, F.C.M. de33

66 740.150,00 24 356.800,00 90 13.818,28

6. Charbon, F.H.34

34 1.601.441,25 8 288.016,94 42 9.953,75

7. Dijk, H.C.A. van35

34 602.399,00 20 224.700,00 54 9.748,00

8. Doorn, J. Paul van36

28 766.300,00 19 222.500,00 47 7.914,00

9. Wilkens, Jan37

36 645.620,00 20 239.325,00 56 7.214,15

Totals (first 9) 583 11.555.584,22 301 4.993.031,94 884 151.429,64

Totals (rest) 444 8.486.312,96 265 4.111.882,48 709 117.299,62

Totals 1.027 20.041.897,18 1.027 9.104.914,42 1.593 268.729,26

Table 4 shows the earnings of the 9 highest earning notaries, who were not members of the NSB.

Tabel 5: participation of NSB and other notaries in the transfer of Jewish property in Amsterdam

Notaries Transfer

Deeds

Mortgage

Deeds

Total

Deeds

Property

(guilders)

Mortgage

(guilders)

NSB 588 36% 381 40% 969 12.647.399 39% 5.963.425 40%

Other 1027 64% 566 60% 1593 20.041.897 61% 9.104.914 60%

Totals 1615 100% 947 100% 2562 32.689.296 100% 15.068.339 100%

Table 5: The result of combining the data of involvement concerning NSB and non-NSB notaries in

the Amsterdam district court is shown here in table 5.

In table 5 the overall picture for the participation of notaries in Amsterdam is shown, which has been

distinguished between the NSB-notaries and the non-NSB (other) notaries. We have to allow for the

fact that we do not have the data of three NSB-notaries available, which relatively exaggerates the

involvement of non-NSB-notaries. Considering that, the involvement of ideologically ‘neutral’

notaries in the transfer of Jewish property in the Amsterdam court district is still considerable.

29

Notary Dirk Jan Graaff retired on 31 December 1950; 30

Notary S. Sierks retired on 31 December 1950; 31

Notary H. Oosterink retired on 31 December 1954; 32

Notary J.D. Meiners retired on 30 June 1951; 33

Notary F.C.M. de Bier retired on 30 June 1949; 34

Notary F.H. Charbon, who was a governor of the Broederschap during and after the war, retired on 31

December 1947; 35

Notary H.C.A. van Dijk retired on 31 December 1958; 36

Notary J. Paul van Doorn retired on 1 January 1955; 37

Notary J. Wilkens retired on 31 December 1947;

11

Transitional Justice: judgment of ideological and economical collaboration

In an ‘ideal’ situation the collaboration of Dutch officials with the German authorities would have

been restricted to the NSB-members sympathetic to Nazi-ideology. We have demonstrated here for the

Amsterdam and Rotterdam court district that regarding notaries the situation was far more complex:

collaboration was certainly not restricted to NSB-members. This constituted a major problem for the

post-war transitional justice. In the end it was decided by the Minister of Justice that only the NSB-

members were deprived of their offices. Tribunal-cases and charges against the collaborating non-NSB

notaries were dismissed by personal order of the minister Van Maarseveen. NSB-notaries were judged

on their ideological conviction and punished. Those notaries who were not NSB-members but still had

cooperated willingly and had profited considerably, could continue their office. They had to

recompense 60 per cent of the income derived from the transfer of Jewish property however they were

allowed to deduct the repaid sum from their annual tax assessment. The money raised was donated to

two charitable funds: Stichting 1940-1945, that supported war victims in general, and Stichting Joods

Maatschappelijk Werk (Jewish Social Work). The fundamental question demonstrated here is the

difference of judgment by the post-war legal system of ‘ideological’ collaboration and opportunistic,

economic cooperation.

The Hague, August 2013