As late as into the 1980s, the Dutch domestic security service spied on Jewish Auschwitz survivors in the Netherlands, including their involvement in the Dutch Auschwitz Committee which was founded in 1956 and considered a ‘danger to democracy’.

This news was reported on 23 December by the Dutch newspaper Het Parool following research and analysis into 71,000 files belonging to the security service which are now open to the public. The monitoring of the supposed ‘extremists’ even penetrated into the private home of Annetje Fels-Kupferschmidt, who at that time was president of the Netherlands Auschwitz Committee and a representative of the Dutch Auschwitz survivors in the International Auschwitz Committee. Observations and reports covered discussions at Auschwitz Committee meetings as well as remembrance ceremonies around the country which it organised to mark the liberation of the death camp, and participation in the international activities of the Auschwitz Committee, including at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial. Documentation covered, for instance, a discussion among members of the Auschwitz Committee in 1966 concerning the upcoming release of the imprisoned SS Obersturmbannführer Willy Lages. Lages had been convicted and imprisoned in the Netherlands for being complicit in deporting more than 100,000 Dutch Jews to the extermination camps. Lages, who was born in 1901 in Braunschweig, was released from prison after a decision by the Dutch Minister of Justice in 1966 due to his failing health and deported to Germany. Five years after his release from prison he died in Braunlage in 1971. The decision caused a public outcry in the Netherlands, not just among survivors of Auschwitz.

Jacques Grishaver, who chairs the Dutch Auschwitz Committee, commented on the journalists’ reports: "Nobody knew anything about these activities. When you read the files it makes you want to cry out loud. All the names that are listed there. These people have endured so much. Almost all of them have lost their entire family. And then they were declared enemies of the state. The fact that reports were made documenting Auschwitz remembrance ceremonies, listing the people who gathered there to commemorate their murdered relatives – this all diametrically opposes any concept of civilization and is devoid of justification, even when one takes into account that the times were different."  Chaja Polak, the 82-year-old daughter of Annetje Fels-Kupferschmidt, told about the many encounters of Auschwitz survivors from numerous countries in her parents’ home and added: "I think that the names of all these people should be cleared of this disgrace. People who made such great efforts to ensure Auschwitz became a visible place on the map of Europe, and to let the world know what happened there; people who worked tirelessly to financially support survivors, the majority of whom were living in poverty – their names deserve to be cleared."

And in Berlin Christoph Heubner, the Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee, said: "For Auschwitz survivors around the world the news from the Netherlands is like a slap in the face and a deeply depressing and outrageous occurrence. It’s high time that the Dutch authorities provide an explanation and an apology. This is all the more important, because many Auschwitz survivors remember very well how they were branded as ‘enemies of the state’ and ‘communists’ during the cold war years simply for commemorating Auschwitz, for insisting on the prosecution and sentencing of the perpetrators, and on compensation for the survivors. But especially the fact that the survivors themselves tried to maintain their ties, amongst themselves and beyond the borders of divided Europe, was a thorn in the side of numerous fanatics in east and west."