Dutch Orthodox Jew Charged with Nazi Collaboration; Ten-year Sentence Asked

A ten-year sentence was demanded today by the prosecution in the trial of Frederik Weinreb, 36-year-old Dutch Orthodox Jew charged with having swindled other Jews seeking to flee Holland during the Nazi occupation. Twenty-three witnesses produced by the state all testified that Weinreb demanded warious sums for saving a number of Jews from being deported by the Gestape to extarmination camps in Poland.

In defending himself, Weinreb admitted that he had accepted money from Jews who feared deportation, but said that all of it went to bribe the Nazis in order to Decure permission for these Jews to escape from Holland. He declared that in 1942, thanks to his connections with high Nazi officials, he succeeded in securing permission for a transport of Jews to leave for un-occupied France, from where they migrated to various overseas countries.

Among the 16 defense witnesses called by Weinreb’s attorney was Professor M. Gohen, president of the Jewish Council during the occupation, who declared that he knew that Weinreb had aided some Jews. He also said he had never heard the “fantastic” stories about Weinreb.

(In America, a number of former Dutch Jews who were befriended by Weinreb have fallied to his support, stating that although he received payment for saving them, the money was used for bribing German officials and therefore they were not swindled. The American Jewish Congress, which is interested in his case, asserts that it has been informed by persons in whose behalf Weinreb acted that he is innocent. Jacob Nosenheim, president of the World Agudas Israel Organization, calls the case “a kind of new Dreyfus case in our times.”)

CHARGE ATTEMPT TO MUZZLE WEINREB TO PROTECT NAZI COLLABORATORS

During the 18 months that Weinreb has been in Jail, his trial has been postponed several times. His friends assert that he is being tried not because he collaborated with the Nazis but because certain Dutch officials fear that he knows too much about their dealing with the Nazis and are attempting to silence him. They charge that during the entire occupation period he made no attempt to hide the fact that he was a Jew and that he committed forgeries, theft and other crimes to thwart the Nazi attempts to exterminate all Dutch Jews.

During the trial two of the most important witnesses for the prosecution changed their testimony. A man named Koch, who was formerly employed by the German police forece in Holland, withdrew a statement that Weinreb had offered him employment with the German secret police. His amended testimony declared that another Dutchman working for the Nazis made him the offer which allegedly come from Weinreb. He said, however, that he had received 10,000 guilders from Weinreb and that both of them had at one time been friendly while they were prisoners in the same Nazi concentration camp.

A former Gestapo agent, J.H.C. Krom, has retracted his charges that Weinreb aided and collaborated with the Nazis, on the basis of which the latter was originally jailed shortly after Holland’s liberation. Krom, however, revealed that he pumped Weinreb to obtain information about other prisoners at the concontration camp.