After World War II, about 425,000 people in the Netherlands were investigated by the Special Jurisdiction for collaboration with the Germans. The records of these investigations and court records are kept in the Central Archive for Special Jurisdiction (“Centraal Archief Bijzondere Rechtspleging,” or CABR for short). An index is available online.
Investigation, Prosecution, and Trials
After World War II, hundreds of organizations worked together to investigate everyone who was suspected of collaboration with the Germans. At the local level, about 200 investigative services did the preliminary research. Serious cases were then handed over to the procurator-fiscal, the prosecutor at the regional level. If sufficient grounds were found to bring the case to trial, the case was then heard by a tribunal or the Court of Special Jurisdiction. Appeal was possible at the Special Council of Appeals.
Accused during special jurisdiction trial in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, 1945. Credits: Carel Blazer, collection Nationaal Archief (CC0).
The Archives
All these organizations involved in investigating, prosecuting, and trying possible collaborators left records. Together, these form the Central Archive of Special Jurisdiction (CABR). The CABR was transferred to the National Archives in The Hague. The CABR contains 3.8 kilometer (2.4 miles) of records, 30 million pages.
Contents of the Records
The contents of the CABR-files for one person can vary greatly.
The smallest file I have seen was just one page, a complaint by a neighbor about someone who had sold a German radio. That was not investigated further so the case was dismissed immediately.
On the other side of the spectrum are the major war criminals, including people who served in the Waffen-SS or people who betrayed Jews or other people in hiding. Such major cases often have different files, created by the different organizations involved in investigating, prosecuting, and trying the suspects. These files can be a rich source of information. The largest file I have personally used spanned multiple archival boxes and had hundreds of documents.
Some types of information I have seen in CABR files:
- Interrogations of suspects, which provide personal details about their lives, occupations, family members, acquitainces, but also about their involvement in the crimes they were accused of.
- Witness statements, including by people in the resistance or victims, about the conduct during the war.
- Accounts of trials.
- Verdicts.
- Diaries, which show the activities people were involved in, which were used as evidence of collaboration.
- Membership cards of organizations like the NSB, the Nazi-Socialist party in the Netherlands that collaborated with the Germans.
- Letters from family members and friends vouching for the suspect, or asking for information.
- Letters from spouses, asking for money while their spouse was incarcerated.
- Correspondence between the different organizations involved with the investigation, prosecution, and trials.
As you can see from this list, the files may contain personal details that have nothing to do with the crimes that were being investigated. The more severe the crimes, the richer the information you may find in the files, including about other aspects of their lives.
Not just Suspects
The CABR is not just important for people researching the suspects that were investigated, but also for the many people mentioned in these records: witnesses, family members, friends, and, victims. Victims could include Jews, gay people, Roma, Sinti, Jehovah’s Witnesses, people with severe disabilities, and other groups targeted by the Nazis, but also Dutch people who worked for the resistance. Their names may be in the files of the people who betrayed them.
Who knows; one of these files may give new information about the person who betrayed the hiding place of Anne Frank and her family. And there are many families of victims like Anne Frank who are still searching for answers that may be hidden in these records.
Public or Not?
The CABR were supposed to become available to the public without access restrictions on 1 January 2025. However, at the last minute, the access restrictions were extended by a year (see official announement).
The Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (Authority Personal Data) had concerns about the privacy of living people, such as the children of suspects mentioned in the files. As a result, the Minister of Education, Culture, and Education, responsible for the National Archives, extended the access restrictions while investigating other legal options to make the records available to the public. Until then, the files can be seen at the National Archives by appointment only, and only for cases where the suspect is deceased.
Digitization and Access
The CABR files are being scanned and made full-text searchable. Originally, these were going to be made available online via Oorlog voor de Rechter [War before the Court] but because of privacy concerns, that is now on halt. The National Archives is working on a temporary solution to make the searchable scans available in the reading room.
The index of the people for whom there is a CABR-file is now available via Oorlog voor de Rechter . It only contains people who were registered with their birth date, who were born before 1915, or born after 1915 and are proven to be deceased.
Unfortunately, for now, the archives can only be searched by name of the person who was investigated. The full-text search option will make it possible to search for the names of other people in the files, including the victims.
Example: Gesina Hendrika Hoitink
As an example of doing research in the CABR, I am going to use Gesina Hendrika Hoitink, the sister of my great-grandfather. I have seen her files at the National Archives.
Search via Oorlog voor de Rechter
- Go to Oorlog voor de Rechter
- If this is the first visit, you will see a popup with some info. Click through that until you get to the main page.
- In the text box for “zoeken naar een persoon” type in the name of the person. You can search for first name, last name, place of residence during the war. In this case, I search for Hoitink and press Enter. This gives me a list of five people, including Gesiena Hendrika Hoitink.
- I click on Gesiena Hendrika’s name to go to her detail page.
We see that Gesiena Hendrika Hoitink was born (“geboren”) in Winterswijk on 4 April 1897, which matches the information I have in my tree for her. Deceased (“overleden”) is yes (“ja”), indicating she was deceased. Her place of residence during the war (“woonplaats”) was Amersfoort.
“CABR-dossiers over deze persoon” (CABR files about this person) tells us there were three files for her. Clicking on a file takes us to the website of the National Archives with the option to make an appointment to view the files.
If we scroll down on the page, we see a list with “Betrokken instellingen” [involved organizations]. In this case, we see that she was investigaged by the “politieke recherche” [political investigators] in Utrecht and Amersfoort, and went before the tribunal in Utrecht.
The Outcome
The index only tells us that Gesiena Hendrika Hoitink was investigated. From the involvement of the Tribunal we can infer that the accusations were serious enough that she was brought to trial, but not whether she was found guilty or innocent. To find out what happened, we need to consult the records at the National Archives, which I did in the past.
The files show she was accused of several facts (I am only including the facts involving people that I know are deceased here):
- She reported that a Dutch man was involved in illegal activities (resistance) and had insulted the Dutch army, which caused him to be arrested.
- She had reported people who were in hiding.
- She received members of the German Wehrmacht in her home.
- She acted in a pro-German manner.
- She received food from the Germans.
- She read Volk en Vaderland, a Nazi magazine.
She was convicted on 7 June 1946 of causing a Dutch citizen to be incarcerated. She was sentenced to four years in prison, was stripped of her voting rights, and her personal property was confiscated.
Verdict as published in the Nederlandsche Staatscourant, the official gazette, 20 February 1947. Via Delpher.
About Yvette Hoitink
Hello from Canada. I am just wondering if you know how many CABR files one may request for one day. What, in your opinion, is a reasonable number. I understand that the length of each file can vary significantly. I do not see on the CABR website an indication of how many files I could request. I will be visiting from Canada on a research trip in the spring and am thinking about which ones to prioritize and how many is reasonable to request for each day. I just thought you maybe had some advice about it. Thank you for your website. I appreciate it. -DL
I don’t think there is a limit but they will keep them behind the counter for you. You can only have one file at the time at your desk to avoid putting papers back in the wrong box.
I think 1-2 files per hour would be a reasonable amount, so if you go on a Tuesday when they’re open from 10 am-9 pm you could request up to 18 files or so.
You can often tell the lighter cases apart by the organizations involved. If there are no court or tribunal files, it will typically be lighter (though not necessarily innocent since prosecutors could hand out light sentences). Lighter cases typically have thinner files.
Forgot to say, I doubt you will be able to reserve a table for spring. They have a limited number of tables and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re booked for months out already. Try to reserve how to have a chance.