The Netherlands government and the Justice Ministry have received a unanimous appeal from the Netherlands Council of Churches to release the last three German war criminals imprisoned in Holland on humanitarian grounds. The government has not yet responded.
The church group based its appeal on the argument that punishment should not have the character of permanent vengeance and that the three prisoners were now physical wrecks. They said that the argument made four years ago that freeing the Nazi war criminals would cause mental suffering to their surviving victims, no longer applied because there was now a psychiatric clinic headed by Prof. Johann Bastiaans which was established for the purpose of helping the victims of Nazi war crimes.
When the appeal was made on behalf of the war criminals in 1972, the government promised it would not release the prisoners without prior consultation with Parliament and with the various Dutch resistance organizations. The resistance groups, Jewish congregations and Communist spokesmen have all reacted sharply against the Council of Churches’ appeal. Prof. Bastiaans has also rejected it. He observed that so far very few people have sought treatment in his clinic.
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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.
