Pim Fortuyn and his dogs
Dutch populist politician Pim Fortuyn with his dogs. The small dogs were seen in church during Pim's funeral
Sixteen years ago Dutch populist politician Pim Fortuyn was gunned down by a radical leftist, only minutes after he had given a radio interview at Hilversum media center. Many questions surrounding his assassination remain, however. Hated by the Left, but loved by many who still had their heads screwed on, he was a leader who represented the thoughts and feelings of Dutch nationals who could see where the country was headed. He warned about the encroaching totalitarianism of political correctness, so-called 'anti-racism', the destructive effects of mass immigration, problems in healthcare, education and so on.

In a prescient statement broadcast about 6 weeks before he was assassinated, Fortuyn spoke of the dangerous climate the Dutch establishment had created.
"The Dutch government, and I think it is a bloody shame, helps to create a climate of demonization of me as a person. And if something happens to me, then they will be partly responsible, and then they can't renounce it, in the sense that I haven't committed that attack. You have partly created that climate. It has to end."
On the evening of 6 May 2002, within hours of the assassination, riots broke out near the seat of parliament in The Hague. People were clearly heard chanting 'murderers' at the government, because they knew full well who was responsible for Fortuyn's murder. In order to deflect culpability, the Dutch elite very quickly shifted the blame to Fortuyn's followers by accusing them of racism. On that very night, the authorities organized a press conference where the people were told that the assassin had been apprehended (within minutes apparently) and that he was white rather than the expected immigrant (as if there were no white radical leftists). Political party leaders subsequently got the security detail that was denied to Pim Fortuyn. The same 'leaders' who had persecuted him relentlessly, were now whining about their own safety.

When the alleged murderer, Volkert van der Graaf, was released from prison in 2014 rather than serve his full term until 2020, the Dutch elite rubbed more salt into the collective wound of the people, mocking and punishing them by implicitly reminding them that they will never be able to choose a leader who would serve their interests. Van der Graaf can now do as he pleases and has since appealed the terms of his probation, at the expense of the taxpayer, and won.

With the death of PVV councillor Willie Dille, who committed suicide last week after publishing testimony on Facebook that she was 'raped to order' by a Muslim gang, the climate in Dutch society is evocative of the period leading up to and after the death of Fortuyn.

Just how destructive and divided Dutch society is today is evidenced by a video posted by a Moroccan man using the name of 'Opa (grand-father) Norma', in which he wears a mask and makes fun of Willie Dille's suicide by imitating the 'last phone conversation' with her, giving her 'advice' on how to commit suicide, while saying "she is going to die, she is going to die".

But if we go back just 70 years in time, we can see that this atmosphere of hatred, revenge and division in Dutch society is far from unprecedented. In the immediate aftermath of WWII, many Dutch people focused their aggression against members of the National Socialist Movement (NSM) (and other alleged Nazi collaborators), which developed into a veritable inquisition against political dissidents. By the end of 1943, the Dutch government and royalty that had fled to London at the very beginning of the war had already started making plans for how to deal with these 'political delinquents'. They passed laws called 'special judicial procedures' (in Dutch: Bijzondere Rechtspleging) and immediately after the liberation of the Netherlands the domestic forces (in Dutch: Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten (BS)), aka the Orange Gestapo, led by Prince Bernhard of Orange, brought about complete anarchy in Dutch society. (Bernhard, by the way, went on to create the Bilderberg Group.)

Revenge after WW II, the Netherlands
Unadulterated revenge against fellow Dutch citizens after liberation in 1945
Under their command, between 120,000 and 175,000 people (out of a population of 9 million) were arrested and thrown into internment camps, often based on false testimonies and secret investigations. Some even ended up in Westerbork transit camp, from where Jews had been deported earlier by the Nazis. 16% of so-called NSM children ended up in these concentration camps and 24% of them were put in children's homes or foster care. Members of the public were recruited as guards and, just like the official Orange gestapo, could act with impunity. People in the camps and outside were beaten, starved to death, tortured, murdered and most likely raped. Together with the domestic forces these guards turned into Nazis themselves, the enemy they had previously despised.

To this day, many Dutch people believe that NSM followers were all fascists and racists, so it's no surprise that so many Dutch people today find it very easy to use the exact same terms to demonize their new bete noire - the so-called 'alt-right'.

My grand-father was an NSM member, so I decided to research my family history at the National Archives (NA) in The Hague. The conditions the NA imposes on its visitors are rather suspect. I was not allowed to make copies or take photographs, I was not even allowed to bring my glasses case. A security guard was sitting at the head of the table where I was reading and writing and a colleague of his went through my notes written on very small bits of paper (handed to me by the NA) after I had finished.

My grand-father was rounded up and incarcerated within days of liberation and, without trial, sent to a concentration camp. Unable to take care of her child, my grand-mother sent my father to live with relatives. My grand-father was released after 18 months, probably due to my grand-mother writing a feisty and rather courageous letter to the authorities, in which she stated that she needed her husband home. My grand-parents and my father never spoke about their past and my mother only found out about it years after the death of my father, who died when he was still fairly young.

The Dutch people were all raised with the idea that NSM followers were the enemy, traitors to the great Dutch nation and this served as useful propaganda to keep the population thinking the 'right way'. Conditioned and browbeaten in this way by the politically correct establishment of post-war 'decency', I found it hard to talk about it until recently. Many NSM children and grand-children are plagued by feelings of guilt, shame, inadequacy, depression and fear, which have a devastating effect on their health.

A Dutch commenter described it as follows:
I am a daughter of a mother who was a victim of this as a child and the rest of her life. Her mother died because of these internment camps and my mother and her brothers and sisters subsequently got a lifelong sentence because of all these Roman Catholic children's homes (prisons where they had to spend their childhood). As long as I can remember, my mother was ill from April till the end of June until her death. Then she couldn't eat, couldn't digest anything anymore and came out of bed after months looking like a ghost. She didn't want to talk about it, but she couldn't process it. She developed Alzheimer's disease at a very young age and died 5 years ago. I feel that she has always wanted to forget and therefore developed Alzheimer's disease. We as children always had to carry that feeling that we were bad. It didn't matter how much we tried. Even 'old' people told us once in a while that we were NSM grand-children... We were always 'bad'. Till this day I have a fear of people.
As long as this dreadful time remains hidden, it will remain a part of the Dutch collective unconscious, and as long as people are not aware of it, the crimes of the past will be repeated. With the tight control that the government has over its war archives, it remains doubtful that the Dutch will ever learn more about the role of their leaders and the impact this episode had on the population. Articles and books have been published which can give them more information, so some may cleanse their minds of the brainwashing.

Politicians like Pim Fortuyn, Willie Dille and others were treated in the same cruel and vengeful way that the Dutch population treated NSM followers in the immediate aftermath of WWII, with the Dutch elite and its media stoking the fires and then washing their hands when social conflict results.