The trial of Capt. Willy Lages who is charged with responsibility for the mass deportation of 70,000 Dutch Jews during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands opened here this week-end.
Shortly after the trial opened the defendant pleaded innocent, asserting that he had known nothing of the deportations. The presiding justice of the tribunal, however, read out a letter from a Nazi official to Capt. Lages in 1943 to the effect that deportation of the Jews would mean their extermination.
In the Netherlands parliament yesterday, a proposal that the government refuse to permit the nomination of wholly non-Jewish foster organizations to serve as guardians for war orphans was rejected. The demand was made by the Jewish Committee for Children which also complained to members of the parliament that the government commission responsible for the care of war orphans has disregarded the wishes of some of the parents of the children in the matter of conversion, and that the commission is “hostile” to “religious and national aspirations of the Jews.”
Communist and Labor Party deputies proposed that Jews be appointed to the commission, but the government spokesmen refused. During the debate the Dutch Chief Rabbinate and Jewish communal organizations appealed to all deputies in behalf of the Jewish view.
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.
