The Netherlands Ministry of Justice will reopen the dossiers of 88-year-old Jacob Van Tilberg who has been accused of appropriating vast collections of art work and other valuables entrusted to his safe-keeping by Dutch Jews during the Nazi occupation of Holland in World War II, a Ministry spokesman announced today. Van Tilberg has been living in South Africa for the past 25 years.
He had been an alderman of the town of Dordrecht, south of Ratterdam, and after the war was accused of collaboration with the Germans. But those charges were dropped for lack of evidence. His possession of alleged Jewish art work and valuables came to light when Van Tilberg recently bequeathed a $10 million art collection to the University of Pretoria. Former members of the Dutch resistance movement in Dordrecht have charged that Van Tilberg defrauded Jews who entrusted him with their valuables. The Jews reportedly were put in touch with Van Tilberg by his Jewish business associate, Peretz Wang, who lived in Scheveningen.
Sources here said that Van Tilberg bequeathed the art collection to Pretoria University rather than to his four daughters who live in Holland because his daughters are aware of its origin and want no part of it.
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