Dutch tram firm that transported Jews including Anne Frank to Nazi death camps chased invoices after end of WWII
6 March 2024, 08:32 | Updated: 6 March 2024, 09:03
A Dutch tram firm that transported tens of thousands of Jews including Anne Frank to Nazi concentration camps tried to chase money owed for hundreds of rides.
Listen to this article
Loading audio...
The municipal public transport operator GVB in Amsterdam took 63,000 Jews during WWII, the Telegraph reports.
The Gestapo paid it 10 guiders for every tram and 12.50 for journeys made at night.
The company invoiced monthly, but not all were paid by the time the Netherlands was liberated from the Nazis in 1945.
A filmmaker later discovered that GVB was still invoicing for the transport of Jews in 1947, two years after the end of the war.
Read more: Donald Trump and Joe Biden set for rematch as pair sweep to victory on Super Tuesday
A GVB bill for the last 900 tram rides from August 8, 1944, showed that Anne Frank and her family were transported from Amsterdam's Central Station.
The invoices were discovered in an archive by Willy Lindwer, a filmmaker, and Guus Luijters, a writer, who said the company had profited from the forced transport of Jews.
“A collection agency was then called in to try for two years to recover the 80 guilders. I found that really shocking,” Mr Luijters said.
“[They] continued to collect money from transports of Jews from the war long after the war,” Mr Lindwer added.
Dutch railways apologised for its role in the deportation of Jews from the Netherlands in 2005 and promised in 2018 to pay compensation.
The GVB has not yet done so.
