Jewish Amsterdammers who were charged ground rent for their properties over the years they spent in concentration camps or in hiding during World War II should get that money back, according to the city’s mayor.

In April, students discovered that hundreds of Jews were sent the bills when they returned to their homes after the war. They should now get that money back plus interest, Eberhard van der Laan told KRO television programme Oog in Oog.

Every cent the council earned by being heartless or bureaucratic should be returned ‘and interest is part of that’, he said.

Fines

The students were working on the digitialisation of part of the city’s archives when they discovered Jews had been billed and fined for non-payment of erfpact – a tax on land use – during the war years.

Officials are also trying to discover if the same thing happened with gas and electricity bills.

The Netherlands is still struggling to come to terms with the way it treated Jews who returned home in 1945 and whose property and possessions had been stolen or lost.

Only 35,000 of the country’s Jewish population of 140,000 survived the war and 102,000 of the 107,000 who were deported to death camps were killed.

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