Amsterdam will compensate Jews on Holocaust Era Tax

Report recently issued by the Institute for War and Holocaust Amsterdam, arousing great interest among Dutch Jews who lived in the city during the Holocaust and had to pay rent and taxes to the Municipality although the apartments were confiscated.

The report states that the municipality of Amsterdam Jews townspeople collected municipal taxes and taxes related to the municipality - though the apartments were confiscated and never lived in them.

It all began three years ago, when a young student named Charlotte van der Berg began working in the archives of the city of Amsterdam. A few months after she started working there, she discovered letters sent by survivors over the years, which brings up the collection department of Amsterdam which was not ashamed to collect overdue taxes and fines on homes expropriated from them during the Holocaust.

City Hall's response shocked her even more: "Tax base and fines of delay must be regulated, no matter what party, and if it had actual property for a certain period," replied the municipality based on a decision taken in September 1947, that " the right of collection exists and most of excuses - including residents of the assets seized by the Nazis - are not valid."

For years, Van der Berg kept the documents, and ultimately transferred them to check NIOD Dutch Research Institute - Institute for War and the Holocaust. Study found out that there are hundreds of cases, and that despite the attorney of the City of Amsterdam previously ordered not to collect the said taxes - instruction was rejected due to fear of future claims. When the test was completed the institute recommended compensation in the amount of $ 6.7 million alongside the return of those funds already paid.

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!