NIOD: women in post-war internment camps suffered rape and torture
Almost 200 testimonies about sexual violence against women held after the Second World War were left unused after a 1950 parliamentary inquiry, NIOD says.
Women held in internment camps after the Second World War suffered sexual violence, including rape, torture and humiliation, according to research by the NIOD war studies institute. Almost 200 victims and witnesses described it in hearings held for a parliamentary inquiry in 1950, but the testimonies ended up in a drawer.
The women were held on suspicion of having had relations or contact with Germans during the occupation. NIOD writes that they gave detailed accounts of rapes, sadistic torture, forced undressing and public humiliation.
Former police inspector Johanna van Schilfgaarde questioned some of the women in 1950 for the inquiry into Dutch government policy during the war years.
The inquiry's final report did not mention the hearings. NIOD writes: "Despite the incriminating information in these hearing reports, the final report of the inquiry committee made no mention of them and even gave the impression that no witnesses had been found at all."
NIOD (Instituut voor Oorlogs-, Holocaust- en Genocidestudies)
The NIOD is a Dutch research institute that studies the Second World War, the Holocaust and other genocides. It conducts historical research, manages archives and collections on these subjects, and publishes its findings. Its studies are often cited in public debate and in parliamentary inquiries about wartime events in the Netherlands and the former Dutch East Indies.