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| Part of the Westerbork monument. Photo: Blacknight via Wikimedia Commons |
Dutch state-owned railway firm NS is to pay compensation
to survivors and family members of people it transported to death camps during
World War II.
NS earned large amounts of money from the German occupiers by
transporting Jews to Westerbork, the holding camp where people were kept before
being moved out to Germany and Poland.
‘This is a black page in the history of
our country and our company,’ NS said in a statement. ‘It is a past which we
cannot ignore.’
The company is setting up a special commission to look into how
the company can make individual payments to survivors and the relatives of
people who died. The aim is to head off the risk of lengthy legal procedures
‘which is in no-ones interest’, the statement said.
Holocaust survivor Salo
Muller, 82, has been campaigning for compensation from NS, which, he says,
earned millions of euros from its WWII role.
The NS formally apologised for its
role in the deportations in 2005 and has since invested in monuments and
educational programmes about the Holocaust.
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