Jacob Luitjens

Jacob Luitjens (born 18 April 1919) was a Dutch collaborator during World War II. He was nicknamed the terror of Roden, as he was active in and around Roden in the Drenthe Province. He was born in Buitenzorg, Dutch East Indies.

After the war, on 10 September 1948, Luitjens was convicted in absentia to life imprisonment. He evaded this punishment by fleeing to Paraguay, aided by Mennonites, using the name "Gerhard Harder". He emigrated to Canada in 1961, where he became an instructor in the Department of Botany at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Students in the department knew him as an almost completely silent "ghost-like" man.

The Frisian Jack Kooistra, also known as 'the Frisian Simon Wiesenthal', managed to track down Luitjens in 1992. Luitjens was stripped of his Canadian citizenship and was deported to the Netherlands. At a court in Assen, he was convicted and sentenced to an imprisonment of 28 months. He served this term until March 1995 in a prison in Groningen. Afterwards, the Canadian government forbade his return to Canada. Luitjens has been without a nationality since. Ian Kagedan of B'nai Brith Canada characterized the deportation as part of an ongoing "quest" to bring Nazi war criminals to justice.^[1]

Luitjens granted an interview in January 2022, at the age of 102.^[2]

External links

Notes

^ Dutch Nazi deported from Canada for lying about wartime Past, The Jewish Post and News, Dec. 2, 1992
^ Hulzebos, Bram (9 January 2022). "Dit gebeurde er toen podcastmaker Maarten van Gestel aanbelde bij oud-NSB'er Jacob Luitjens (102), de 'schrik van Roden'". DVHN. Retrieved 9 January 2022.

This article about a person from the Netherlands is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[1] Dutch Nazi deported from Canada for lying about wartime Past, The Jewish Post and News, Dec. 2, 1992

[2] Hulzebos, Bram (9 January 2022). "Dit gebeurde er toen podcastmaker Maarten van Gestel aanbelde bij oud-NSB'er Jacob Luitjens (102), de 'schrik van Roden'". DVHN. Retrieved 9 January 2022.

[1]

[2]

v t e Canada and war crimes
Main	Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act
Canadian-born individuals convicted of war crimes	Omar Khadr Kanao Inouye Nicholas Ribic
Canadian immigrants charged with war crimes	László Csatáry Imre Finta Vladimir Katriuk Jacob Luitjens Désiré Munyaneza Léon Mugesera Helmut Rauca
Foreigners charged with war crimes by Canada	Kurt Meyer