Mr. N. H. Wiarda - Wet op de Materiële Oorlogsschade en verordeningenbladen [onrecht joodse burgers] - 1950

An extremely rare and important book telling the story of the injustice inflicted by the Dutch government on Jewish Holocaust survivors.

Mr. N.H. Wiarda (Nitard Hendrik Wiarda) was the lawyer and author who wrote the authoritative handbook and commentary on the law, *Wet op de materiële oorlogsschaden* (Compensation for Material War Damage Act), in 1950. This specific law (originally the 1945 *Besluit op de Materiële Oorlogsschaden*, or Decree on Material War Damage) was the postwar scheme under which Dutch citizens could apply for compensation for property destroyed or damaged by acts of war.

In practice, however, this law proved extremely problematic, cold and inaccessible for Jewish citizens, and is an important part of the historical debate about the chilly postwar legal restitution process in the Netherlands.

Although the law applied to all Dutch citizens, the situation turned out to be deeply unfair for Jewish survivors and their relatives. The government took a highly bureaucratic and detached approach to the damage. Jewish citizens had to provide hard evidence of what had been stolen, even though they had often only just returned from concentration camps or hiding and had lost all their papers. Many Jewish possessions had been systematically stolen during the war (including through the Nazi bank Lippmann, Rosenthal & Co.). Recovering these belongings or receiving fair compensation involved complicated procedures and was considered impossible.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, investigative committees (such as the Van Kemenade Committee) showed that postwar legal restitution for Jewish citizens had been cold and bureaucratic. Mr. N.H. Wiarda’s 1950 book is frequently cited in these historical and academic reports (such as the KPMG appendices to the final report *Looting and Restitution*) as the primary source demonstrating how the legislation on compensation for material damage was formally structured at the time.

In good condition, with some signs of use and discoloration to the spine; bears the name and signature of Thomas Leeflang, a renowned author and journalist who received the Louis Hartlooper Lifetime Achievement Award.