Jan Kruyer, a Dutch war criminal, who has been in hiding in West Germany for more than 25 years, was arrested Friday by a Dutch customs inspector as he tried to enter the country at The Netherlands-West German border town of Venlo. The arrest followed a tip to the authorities by a Dutch reporter.
Kruyer, 62, had been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment by a Dutch de-Nazification court in 1947 for having taken part as a member of an SS commando group in the killing of numerous Dutch citizens in reprisal for the deaths of Germans by members of Dutch resistance groups. Kruyer, who had been active in the province of Groningen in the northeast part of Holland, was serving his prison sentence near the West German border when in 1952 he managed to escape over the border. Kruyer is the first of four wanted war criminals who had been hiding in West Germany to be captured by Dutch authorities. The other three, who had also been active in the Groningen province, are Siert Bruins, Wilhelm Bos and Jan Haje Klimp.
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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.
