Jan Olij

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Jan Olij (born August 10, 1920 in Landsmeer ; † May 8, 1996 near Buenos Aires ) was a Dutch boxer and collaborator during the German occupation of the Netherlands. He was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment as a war criminal in the Netherlands , which he never had to serve because he lived in Argentina and was not extradited.

biography

In German service

Jan Olij was born the son of Sam Olij , who competed as a boxer at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam . Sam Olij's sons Jan and Kees were also active as boxers, initially in the boksschool Olympia , where many Jews were members. Jan Olij, also known as Reus van Landsmeer ( Riese von Landsmeer ), became the Dutch heavyweight champion in 1940 . In the 1930s the three men became members of the NSB ; the sons in particular were staunch anti-Semites . In 1940 father Olij joined the Central Office for Jewish Emigration , his sons Kees and Jan signed up for the Waffen SS . From July 1940 to February 1941 Jan Olij stayed in Munich for training with the Waffen SS. He was then used until November 1941 in Greece , Yugoslavia and Russia as a member of the SS standard "Westland". In his diary he noted:

“June 24-30 [...] Verschrikkelijke tonelen, in Lviv. Duizenden lijken, van vermoorde vrouwen, mannen en Volksdeutschen. Overal knalt het, en has been de joden neergeschoten. July 1, 1941. Ik ben 1 jaar bij de SS. Mijn first gevechtsdag. Then we got in het bezit van 30 lijkplunderaars, Joden. All have been vijf na vijf neergeschoten, na hun own graven crafted lifts. Ik ben doodsmisselijk van deze knallerij. Het is geen alledaags work, canteens neerschieten. 3-4 july 1941, the iodine was doodled. Met hun handen graven zij hun vermoorde slachtoffers op, daarna been meteen in dezelfde graven neergeknald. "

"24.-30. June [...] Horrible scenes in Lemberg . Thousands of corpses, of murdered women, men and ethnic Germans. There are bangs everywhere and Jews are shot. July 1, 1941. I've been with the SS for a year. My first day of combat. Then we fell into the hands of 30 corpse looters, Jews. [Each] five are all shot one after the other after digging their own grave. I'm sick of this bang. This is not an everyday job of shooting people. 3rd to 4th July 1941. Hundreds of Jews are shot. They dig up their murdered victims with their hands, and then they were gunned down in the same graves. "

He wrote to his family: “The only things that exist in Russia are lice and Jews, with which we have made short work of the first of the two types by hand, the second with pistol and rifle. You see, your nephew is now such a murderer too, but that doesn't bother my conscience because of the lousy Jews who cheat and plunder the poor Russian population. "

Olij was wounded on the Eastern Front and returned to the Netherlands. After his recovery, he resumed his boxing career. In June 1942 he lost a fight in Klagenfurt against the German Olympic heavyweight champion from Wuppertal , Herbert Runge , after he had previously become champion of the Ostmark . On September 24, 1942, he left the SS with the rank of Rottenführer and in 1943 joined the work control service , where he was charged with tracking down people in hiding. In 1945 he moved to the Ordnungspolizei ( Green Police ), where he made a name for himself by beating confessions out of prisoners.

After the war

The Amsterdam prison on Amstelveenseweg (here 1964)

After the end of the occupation of the Netherlands by the Germans in July 1945, Jan Olij was arrested by the Dutch authorities and served in prison on Amstelveense Weg in Amsterdam. After two years he was transferred to an internment camp in Hoensbroek , where he had to work in a coal mine . From there he managed to escape to Spain, where he was briefly housed in a camp in the Basque town of Nan Clares de la Oca . He then earned his living boxing in the north of Spain under the name Jack Oley . The boxing matches were organized by the former Amsterdam underworld great Dries Riphagen , who, like Olij, was on the run from the Dutch judiciary. In 1949 Olij had enough money to buy a ship passage to Brazil , from where he went to Argentina . In his absence, he was sentenced to imprisonment in July of the same year by the Bijzonder Gerechtshof , the Dutch special court for war crimes and high treason, for his membership in the Waffen-SS, his involvement in mass shootings in Eastern Europe and the arrest of those persecuted by the Nazi regime in the Netherlands convicted of 20 years.

Olij settled in Argentina, married and had a son. He boxed again for Riphagen, who had come to Argentina two years earlier and had good contacts up to the highest levels of government, now under the name Jan Olij Hottentot ( Hottentot was his mother's maiden name). He played his last fight on January 1, 1950 in Mendoza against the Argentine Francisco Romero; because of arthritis he had to give up the sport. He himself later stated that he had become an invalid after falling from the roof.

In the late 1950s to the organization Odessa a brief return to Europe has enabled Olij after his statement, where he in German Herten lived to meet with his family. After being arrested, he managed to escape again. According to another account, the former resistance fighter Harry Tromp and the journalist Han Lammers (later mayor of Groningen and Almere ) informed the Amsterdam police of Olij's stay, but they did not take any action. In 1962 Jan Olij moved to Isidro Casanova in Argentina, where he gave interviews to Dutch journalists who had tracked him down. From then on, at the latest, his address was known to the Dutch authorities. After he could no longer fight, which earned "lanky" Olij his living in various ways, including as bodyguards of the governor, translator and painter. From 1951 he had the Argentine citizenship, which, as his son later reported, he received with the support of the Dutch ambassador at the time, who obtained the necessary papers for him.

Over the years, Jan Olij wrote several times to the Dutch judiciary and unsuccessfully asked for a pardon . In one of his requests he wrote: “The war in Russia with its wounds, cold, hunger and deprivation, later after the war the camps in the Netherlands, the flight to Spain through several countries, later the misfortune in South America, the great poverty through invalidity, these are events that have taught me a lot. Everything I had in my life in Holland, I lost through my impulsive step in my youth. [...] I still feel like a stranger in this country and every day I feel the desire to return to the Netherlands and see my parents again. "

The Netherlands made several unsuccessful extradition requests to Argentina. In December 1988 the Dutch judiciary made another attempt to get hold of the Dutch Nazi war criminals who were still alive in Argentina (Olij and Abraham Kipp , Riphagen had since died). The reason for this was also that the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) put public pressure on. Although it should be clear to both sides that this request would not be successful for legal reasons, the Argentine side initially granted the request due to the strong media interest. Olij was arrested but released after a brief detention. The reasons given for non-extradition were that Olij was Argentinian, that war crimes were not part of the extradition treaty between the Netherlands and Argentina and that his actions were statute-barred. Another reason given by a federal judge was that an absentee conviction would not be accepted in Argentina because Olij had no opportunity to defend himself. Sergio Widder , representative of the SWC in Latin America , took the view that Olij, like Abraham Kipp, would have been extradited if the Dutch government had tried harder.

Apparently Olij then moved within Argentina because the Dutch authorities did not know his whereabouts. The investigative Dutch journalist Arnold Karskens found out in 2009 that Jan Olij had died in 1996. At the time of his death, he was living in the Buenos Aires area . He is buried in a cemetery in La Matanza .

Jan Olij's father, Sam Olij, was sentenced to death by the Dutch judiciary after the war, but was released from prison in 1954. The fate of the brother Kees, who was also in Argentina, is unknown.

In a 2013 biography of Queen Máxima of the Netherlands from Argentina, the Olij case was discussed among others.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Boksschool Olympia, Second World War. In: dedokwerker.nl. Retrieved September 4, 2017 .
  2. ^ Collectie - Joods Historisch Museum - Joods Cultureel Kwartier. (No longer available online.) In: archive.is. July 24, 2016, archived from the original on July 24, 2016 ; accessed on September 4, 2017 .
  3. ↑ a b Ad van Liempt: Jodenjacht. Uitgeverij Balans, 2013, ISBN 978-94-6003-728-3 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Jochem Botman: Olij, Jan. In: go2war2.nl. October 15, 2015, accessed September 3, 2017 (Dutch).
  5. ↑ January Olij in Duitschland. In: General Handelsblad. June 10, 1942, p. 5 , accessed September 4, 2017 .
  6. ^ A b Daniel Stahl: Nazi Hunt. Wallstein Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-835-32425-1 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  7. ↑ a b Arnold Karskens: Diplomats & de SS. In: thekarskenstimes.com. July 2, 2009, accessed September 4, 2017 (Dutch).
  8. ↑ a b c d e Arnold Karskens: Over Kipp & Olij. In: thekarskenstimes.com. June 16, 2009, accessed September 3, 2017 (Dutch).
  9. ↑ Arnold Karskens: Het beestmensch. Atlas Contact, Uitgeverij, 2012, ISBN 978-9-045-02249-9 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  10. ^ Ferrari Soledad: Máxima. Knaur eBook, 2013, ISBN 978-3-426-40266-5 ( limited preview in Google book search).
personal data
SURNAME Olij, Jan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch boxer and collaborator
DATE OF BIRTH August 10, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Landsmeer
DATE OF DEATH May 8, 1996
Place of death near Buenos Aires