Traditionally, the first working day of 2026 at the National Archives in The Hague was again Openness Day, the moment when tens of thousands of files that were secret until then are released. Professional researchers have previously been able to view important material, but from this Friday the documents can be viewed by every Dutch person. The harvest from a day spent browsing the grass.
Tocci’s Milk BarSecret Service spies on jazz fans
Tocci’s Milkbar in The Hague in 1940.
Photo The Hague Municipal Archives
“Swing-nozems of the worst kind”, is what the customers of Tocci’s Milkbar at Hofsingel 8A in The Hague were called. In response to articles in the Haagsch Dagblad and an armed robbery, the Internal Security Service (the predecessor of the AIVD) decided in 1949 to investigate the milkshake-drinking jazz enthusiasts who wasted their time in this case of the Tokkie family.
The attention of the service was extra stimulated when the first investigation into the bar’s staff revealed that Dik Smith – driver, boxer and sports masseur – had been with the NSB during the war and was now in a relationship with the married owner Martha Tokkie-Schmidt.
After his visit to the bar, the officer on duty noted that the boys and girls were “just joking around and making fun of each other.” When a jazz record is put on, “one sees, as it were, a shudder passing through the audience.” The young people seemed to fall into a trance. “The girls in particular, some of whom can be seen not leading a healthy life, seem to be sensitive to jazz music.”
The flirting already started in the bar, according to the rapporteur, but continued elsewhere. A young man named Eddy Karelsen “or something similar” shouted through the bar that he wanted to spend two days in a room with a girl. “Another bar visitor arranged this by telephone.”
Among the visitors to Tocci’s Bar were many students, but also young people who seemed intent on “getting through life without working.” The agent noted that visitors thought the milkshakes were “of poor quality”, but that the bar had nevertheless made a profit of NLG 1,697.68 in the past financial year on a turnover of NLG 7,336.15.
That “this idleness and huddle in Tocci’s Bar” not only led to lewd behavior and an objectionable taste in music, was evident from the fact that a robbery that had taken place in August 1949 had been prepared here. The robbers had been caught and were now in jail, but the agent of the Internal Security Service (BVD) was not reassured. After what he had heard and seen, he did not consider it impossible that “occurrences as described above can be expected from the Tocci audience” in the future.
World War IIDutch SS men liberated from Soviet camps
Even though you had joined the Waffen SS during the Second World War and fought on the Eastern Front, the Dutch government did not leave you to your fate. This is evident from the thick folders containing documents from employees of the Ministries of Social Affairs and Foreign Affairs and the embassy in Moscow. They moved heaven and earth to free the Dutch who were locked up under very poor conditions in prisoner of war camps in the Soviet Union.
These traitors were able to communicate with the home front via the Red Cross, unlike Dutch forced laborers who found themselves in Germany in 1945 and were ‘liberated’ there by the Soviets. They were sent to exactly the same camps, but to the great indignation of the Dutch authorities, they had fewer rights.
From a camp in Sighet (Romania), these innocents were initially able to smuggle out notes with the help of the local population, but since they were moved to a camp near Odessa, everything remained quiet. Minister of Foreign Affairs Pim Baron van Boetzelaer van Oosterhout therefore wrote to the ambassador in Moscow in 1948: “It seems desirable to repeatedly bring to the attention of the competent Soviet authorities on appropriate occasions that the Dutch side cannot accept such less favorable treatment of Dutch citizens who are being held against their will in the Soviet Union.”
However, it was an angry decision to eat cherries with the local authorities. The Soviets wanted citizens back who were in the Netherlands, but believed that the Dutch government was sabotaging their repatriation to the mother country.
After checking their papers, it turned out that fourteen men were Germans who had pretended to be Dutch in the hope of being released earlier
It became a protracted issue. Ambassador Baron van Pallandt wrote from Moscow in September 1950 that Deputy Minister Andrei Gromyko “barely looked at his note and started by saying that the figure of 750 Dutch people I mentioned was grossly exaggerated.”
After this, Gromyko delivered a tirade about the alleged hostage taking of his compatriots in the Netherlands. Van Pallandt strongly denied it, but the Soviet politician was not satisfied with that. “Mr. Gromyko refused to discuss the matter further, gathered up the papers I had given him and declared the conversation over.”
Yet Van Pallandt’s efforts turned out not to be in vain, because on November 3, 1950, the Soviets delivered a group of a hundred Dutch people to the German border. Upon their arrival at the Schlesischer Bahnhof in Berlin, they were greeted by the Dutch consul general. After checking their papers, it turned out that fourteen men were Germans who had pretended to be Dutch in the hope of being released earlier.
The Dutch SS were stuffed with Soviet propaganda, but as they drove through Berlin the scales fell from their eyes, noted a satisfied embassy employee. “In the East Zone of Berlin everything looked sad; no light and the rubble had not been cleared. The West Zone, on the other hand, made a much better impression, exactly the opposite of what they had expected according to years of propaganda.”
Surinamese IndependenceSurinamese Indians demand 224 billion guilders
Meeting of Surinamese Creoles in a school in 1975.
Photo Bert Verhoeff/Anefo
What was this weird thing going on here? Willy de Gaay Fortman, Minister for Surinamese and Dutch Antillean Affairs, sent a telegram to the Dutch governor in Paramaribo on July 24, 1975. He had heard that the ‘Indian Council’, a Surinamese Indian group, had summoned Queen Juliana. They demanded 223 billion guilders in compensation from Her Majesty for “centuries of colonial oppression”.
This was a lot more than the 3.5 billion guilders that the Netherlands planned to transfer as soon as Suriname became independent on November 25. The Indian Council was prepared to be paid in shares by the head of the House of Orange, she said. Governor Johan Ferrier responded that the request was made by a certain Sewsahai, a former tailor who was not a lawyer and often submitted “curious petitions.”
In mid-August, Ferrier reported that Sewsahai had not “got all five in a row” and had “allowed himself to be used by the Indians.” Unfortunately, his complaint was formally in order, so the subdistrict court judge had to leave him on the docket. In addition to Juliana, Prime Minister Joop den Uyl (PvdA) was also summoned. They were accused of violating human rights, centuries of oppression of the Indians of Suriname and contempt for the inheritance rights of the original inhabitants of Suriname.
The claimants were also unhappy that their country had been populated with slaves and indentured servants without their consent, and that authority was now being transferred to a “certain group, mainly descendants of slaves.”
The complainants proceeded to send a bailiff to Ferrier to seize Dutch property in Suriname. He wasn’t very concerned. “The last Surinamese has [tegen die tijd] the lights have already been turned off on Zanderij, if he is a Creole. If he is Hindu, he took the bulb to the Netherlands.”
Prime Minister Den Uyl consulted experts at Leiden University, who assured him that the Indian Council did not speak at all on behalf of all Indians in Suriname and could be considered disavowed. The Leiden cultural anthropologist found it understandable that Indians had little confidence in the Surinamese government.
Officials at the Ministry of Justice considered it “unthinkable” that the judge would grant the claim, and they were proven right on September 26. The subdistrict court in Paramaribo declared the plaintiffs inadmissible. He added that if they had been admissible, they would not have been successful because their complaint concerned “an obscure dragonfly.”
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