According to the historian David Barnouw, many Dutch people regarded the wartime performance of their railway system, the Nederlandse Spoorwegen, as heroic, reported Nina Siegal, The New York Times, Sept. 29, 2019. In September 1944, the Dutch government in exile in London ordered the railway workers to strike, which they did for almost eight months until the end of the war.

This strike, however, came after the Dutch national railroad had already deported some 107,000 Jewish residents of the Netherlands to transit and extermination camps, such as Sobibor, Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz, on commission from the German occupying forces. Only 5,100 survived.

Now, new research published in a Dutch book that was released on Sept. 17, to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the Dutch railway strike, indicates that there were more transports than previously thought, and moreover, that the Dutch national railway had set up special services to facilitate the German-run deportations.

The book, De Nederlandse Spoorwegen in oorlogstijd 1939-1945 (The Dutch Railroad in Wartime, 1939-1945) attempts to clarify the role of the railroad under German occupation, and to offer a comprehensive accounting of the trains and their impact. In all, the researchers found 112 Dutch trains went from the Netherlands to Nazi camps in Germany, Austria and Poland from June 1942 to August 1944.

In 2005, the Dutch national railroad officially acknowledged that it had collaborated with the Nazi occupiers and apologized for its role, The Times said.

[Photo: Jews at Westerbork, a transit camp, northeastern Netherlands, 1942. Westerbork photo]