A former Dutch war criminal who managed to escape from prison in 1952 and flee to Germany has been recently located in the German city of Hagen.
Herbert Bikker, 77, was tracked down by Dutch Nazi-hunter Jacques Kooistra, and an interview with him was broadcast on Dutch television.
Bikker, who escaped from prison during Christmas 1952 with six other inmates, worked as a camp guard at the notorious German concentration camp Erica in eastern Holland during the Nazi occupation.
When Bikker fled to Germany he was granted citizenship under the so-called Fuhrer Erlass of 1943, by which Adolf Hitler granted German citizenship to all foreign members of the SS.
As German citizens, Bikker and his fellow escapees could not be extradited to Holland to serve out the remainder of their terms.
The Erica camp, which held both non-Jews and Jews, was noted for the extreme cruelty of its guards who, while mostly Dutch, were members of the SS.
Bikker was accused of killing two members of the Dutch resistance and of cruel treatment of prisoners.
After the war, Bikker was sentenced to death, but his sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.
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.
