Family Confronts Grandmother’s Nazi Collaboration

In October 2023, Judith Zilversmit, a journalist from Amsterdam, received a surprising message on Instagram. It was from a woman she didn’t know, offering information about her family. The message came from Ingeborg Boelen, a Belgian living near the Dutch border. Boelen had unearthed the criminal file of her own grandmother, revealing collaboration with the Nazis during World War II. This grandmother had betrayed Zilversmit’s family.

The message opened with a note of apprehension. ‘For several months now, I’ve had a knot in my stomach,’ it read. ‘I would like to share something with you, but I am so afraid of writing something wrong. Two years ago, I discovered in an old newspaper article that my grandmother, who lived at home until I was 18, had a dark past. She betrayed your father and the rest of the family, among others.’

Zilversmit, 49, was taken aback by the revelation. She recalled being so startled by the message that she initially swiped it away. The disclosure prompted many questions. Who was this stranger detailing her family’s past betrayal during the war? What was her motive?

‘My first reaction was, ‘What am I supposed to do with this?’’ Zilversmit recounted during an interview.

Zilversmit had been aware of her family’s general WWII history. Her father, Hans, who passed away in 2014, had shared that as a child, he, his parents, and his sister fled to Belgium when Germany invaded Holland in 1940.