Two Dutch war criminals, both sentenced to death in absentia for their activities during the Nazi occupation of Holland, have been discovered living in West Germany. One of them, Wilhelm Bos, 74, has been drawing a Dutch old-age pension since the age of 65. Investigations by two Dutch journalists for the Winschoter Courant uncovered Bos and his wife living in the village of Hattingen, near Dortmund in Germany. They have since left for parts unknown.
Bos was born in Germany of a Dutch father and settled in The Netherlands in 1932 in the northeastern province of Groningen, just across the border from Germany. During World War II the Nazis appointed him head of the labor control service in the neighboring province of Drenthe, where, according to the evidence against him, he exercised a rule of terror.
Several weeks earlier, another wanted war criminal, Siert Bruins, was found to be living in West Germany. Bruins’ crimes, for which he was sentenced to death in 1949, were committed in the same area of Holland as Bos’. Members of the Dutch Parliament are expected to ask the government to explain how it was possible that a war criminal on the wanted list has been receiving a pension for nine years.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
