Amsterdam city council has set aside €820,000 to pay back Jewish Amsterdammers who were fined for not paying ground rent for their properties while they were in concentration camps.

Money which is not claimed will be given to Jewish charities, the city council said.

In April 2013, research students discovered that hundreds of Jews were sent the bills for ground rent plus fines for non-payment when they returned to their homes after the war.

The fines will now be refunded and the city council will take a decision later about the ground rent itself. The council is still investigating how it dealt with other charges such as water rates, the NRC reports.

Hiding

Amsterdam’s mayor Eberhard van der Laan said last year that Jews 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.

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 were 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.