Oorlog voor de Rechter (War in Court)
The Central Archive for Special Jurisdiction (Centraal Archief Bijzondere Rechtspleging, CABR), the largest war archive in the Netherlands, is being digitised and made accessible to a wide audience. That is the aim of the project War in Court (Oorlog voor de Rechter).
War in Court is a joint project of the National Archives of the Netherlands, Netwerk Oorlogsbronnen, the Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands, and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. These organisations are working together to digitise the Central Archive for Special Jurisdiction (CABR), make it fully searchable, provide explanations and make it available online. The archive is managed by the National Archives of the Netherlands in The Hague.
Central Archive for Special Jurisdiction
The CABR contains files on some 300,000 people who were suspected of collaborating with the Germans. The nearly 4 kilometres of files may contain witness statements, NSB membership cards, diaries, requests for pardon and sometimes photographs. The majority of the suspects were found to be innocent. Twenty percent were ultimately convicted by a special court or tribunal, and nearly 1,900 of them were sentenced to ten years or more in prison. Read more about the CABR on the website of Oorlog voor de Rechter (War in Court).
Digitally readable and searchable
The National Archives began scanning the CABR in September 2023. The aim is to achieve an average of 152,000 scans per week. Artificial intelligence will then be used to make everything digitally readable and searchable. To better understand the documents from the CABR and place them in a broader context, they will be enriched with background information. References will also be made to sources on the same subject from other CABR collections.
During the project, the parties involved will consult with interest groups about the handling of personal data. The ability to search across the CABR will provide new insights into events during the Second World War, in all its diversity and from different perspectives. The project will run until 2027.
Online availability postponed
The first CABR files were to be made available online via www.oorlogvoorderechter.nl from January 2025. However, due to the official warning issued by the Authority for Personal Data Protection (AP) at the end of 2024, it has been decided to postpone the online availability of the CABR files for the time being. However, the list of names of persons appearing in the archive database has been available online since January 2025. The Minister of Education, Culture and Science decided in December 2025 that the CABR will remain limitedly accessible to the public until 1 January 2026. He also announced a legislative amendment that will provide a clear legal basis for balancing the interests of privacy and the interests of the Public Records Act, including access to personal data in archives. He aims to complete this legislative amendment before 1 January 2026.
More information about the current options for consulting the CABR can be found on the website of the National Archives.
