Truth and Privacy in the National Archives
In the Netherlands, the National Archives hold the criminal files of people convicted of collaborating with the Nazi occupation and committing war crimes during the Second World War. This film follows the argument over who should be allowed to read them: relatives of Holocaust victims seeking names, dates, and answers about what happened to their families, against the privacy rights of the convicted and their descendants, many of them now dead for decades. Interviews with both sides carry the film, family members of victims describing what closure would mean to them, and relatives of the convicted explaining what exposure would cost them now. Archivists and researchers weigh in on the practical stakes, since the same files that settle personal questions also serve historians studying the occupation. No court ruling or policy change closes the film; the tension between disclosure and privacy is left exactly where the Archives currently sit with it, unresolved.