NIOD research reveals systemic sexual violence in post-WWII Dutch internment camps

Research by the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies has revealed that thousands of Dutch women held in internment camps after World War II were subjected to systemic sexual violence. These women were detained on suspicion of collaboration with Nazi forces or for having relationships with German men.

Investigations by historian Ewoud Kieft uncovered nearly two hundred testimonies detailing severe abuse, including rape, torture, forced nudity, and humiliating public parades. Despite these detailed accounts being recorded as early as 1950 by police inspector Johanna van Schilfgaarde during a parliamentary inquiry, the information was omitted from the final official report. At the time, inquiry leaders reported that no witnesses to such violence had been found, effectively suppressing the scale of the abuse for decades.