The confession that changed the Jewish journalist's life: "My grandmother turned your family in to the Nazis"
A message received by the Dutch journalist revealed to her the role of a Belgian woman's grandmother in turning in her family during the Holocaust. The search for the truth led to a struggle over documents and testimonies, between family memory and historical research. "Perhaps the time for this is not yet ripe, perhaps it will happen in the next generation."
An Instagram message that Dutch journalist Judith Zilbersmit received in October 2023 led her on a journey into her family's past, reopened a wound eight decades old, and dragged her into a conflict she did not anticipate. "Two years ago I discovered that my sweet grandmother had a dark past," wrote a Belgian woman named Ingeborg Bolen to her. "She turned in, among others, your father and the rest of the family members."
However, Zilbersmit's attempt to find out exactly what happened to her family during the Holocaust gave birth to a bitter struggle over control of the documents, over ownership of the family story, and over the boundary between historical research and personal memory, as reported by the "New York Times".
Zilbersmit, 49, and currently the editor-in-chief of the local television station AT5 in Amsterdam, knew the outlines of the story. Her father's family first fled from Germany to Maastricht, and after the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands moved to a hiding place in Liège, Belgium. In November 1943, the hiding place was exposed following an informant. The family members tried to escape through the roof and jump into the courtyard. 14-year-old Hans and his parents managed to escape, but his sister Helga, who was 18, fell, was injured, and was captured. Later she was sent to Auschwitz, but managed to survive.
Bolen said that she had obtained from a legal archive in Belgium the criminal file of her grandmother, Maria-Elisabeth Straetmans-Kunraets, who was called Betsy. The grandmother and her husband ran a cafe on the Belgian side of the border, but she simultaneously served as a secret informant for Richard Nitsch, a Gestapo man who operated in the area. She infiltrated underground networks, turned in their members, and also led to the capture of the Zilbersmit family. In 1946 she was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, but was released as early as 1951.
At first, Bolen invited Zilbersmit to contact her and promised to present to her the evidence in the file, including testimonies of her family members. A few months later, Zilbersmit decided to turn the discovery into a six-episode podcast titled "The Betrayal of the Zilbersmit Family," which was produced for the Dutch newspaper "Het Parool".
She searched in her mother's basement for documents that her father and grandfather had kept, interviewed relatives and experts, and opened the family archive to historian Marie-Cécile van Hintum.
However, van Hintum was also working on a book dealing with the affair. When she asked to take for review boxes containing letters, newspaper clippings, a yellow star, documents with swastikas on them, and lists of looted property, Zilbersmit asked her to update her if she discovered a significant detail. The historian refused to commit and clarified that her findings would be published in the book. "This is my family's material, and you want to hold onto it so that your book succeeds," Zilbersmit lashed out at her. Van Hintum eventually left the boxes at the house and left.
The meeting with Bolen in Belgium also ended in disappointment. Despite the original invitation, she refused to open the legal file to Zilbersmit, claiming that she had promised the historian to wait until the book's publication.
In the attic, Zilbersmit discovered dozens of paintings created by Bolen inspired by Helga's memoir — including the baby carriages of the children murdered in Auschwitz, the camp gate, and young Hans fleeing to a passing train.
Helga also survived the evacuation of Auschwitz and the death marches. After returning to Maastricht while ill with tuberculosis, she wrote from her bed an 11-page testimony. About six decades later, the testimony became the basis of her memoir. "It was completely surreal to find pictures of my family in a Belgian attic," said Zilbersmit.
The podcast by Zilbersmit, which went up in November 2025, attracted more than half a million listeners. Van Hintum claimed in return that she was presented in it in a distorted way and that Zilbersmit is not the owner of the hours of research she performed.
She also claimed that some of the conversations were recorded without her consent. Zilbersmit and her partner for the podcast said that the recording equipment was visible and that the historian knew she was being recorded. Bolen also confronted Zilbersmit during a public discussion in Amsterdam and claimed that parts of the podcast do not align with reality.
The affair reflects a broader problem that arises with the opening of European archives that were kept confidential for decades. In Belgium, one who wishes to view files is usually required to prove a direct connection to the collaborator or receive approval from their family member. Thus, it is precisely the descendants of the victims who may be dependent on the consent of the family of the one who turned in their loved ones. Zilbersmit concluded that it is possible that the current generation is not yet capable of having this conversation: "Perhaps the time for this is not yet ripe. Perhaps it will happen in the next generation."
