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Het Parool - July 25, 2020 - Interview with Salo Muller

Since the shock of World War II, "when I was rounded up by angry men in black clothes and thrown into a truck", Salo Muller fears no one. "But I do fear corona." That is why the Jewish Ajax attendant of yesteryear and the injustice fighter who brought NS to its knees largely prefers isolation. "I have no use for people who say, 'Come on kid, it's over now anyway'. 0 yes? I happen to know four people, here in Amsterdam, who were so into it and are now ill." Muller is quite willing to talk about "the confusion of this particular time", about his life, about THE life and about his revamped collection of stories from the practice of fifty years of physiotherapy: Exposed. Muller: "OK, we meet up, but you don't come into our house." His wife Conny and he even keep their son and daughter plus grandchildren at bay. "We want nothing more than to hug them, but we think it's too dangerous. I am 84 and I have asthma." Muller receives in the Gijsbrecht van Aemstel Park, near his flat in Buitenveldert. "Here it's nice and quiet," he says, gesturing to two empty benches next to each other. "You the one, me the other bench. We could stay here talking for hours."

It must be a horror for the man who was so abruptly and utterly deprived of his freedom as a child to be locked up at home. "It is, but I in no way associate this corona time with the war. That was one big horror, this is more a period of discomfort." Still, today's time worries Muller, and not just because of the erratic and dangerous virus that may be the harbinger of even more contagion misery. Salo is also apprehensive about "the overreaching government", which is overshooting the corona approach. "There are so many rules being promulgated that it erodes democracy. It is too much: you have to do this and are no longer allowed to do that. Freedom is curtailed too emphatically." He is also uncomfortable with the overheating in the discrimination debate. "It's all too fierce for me. I listen to it and think: stop exaggerating. Don't shout that you will hit the other person in the mouth because you don't like what he says. I find the tone ominous. I love macaroons, but at the bakery I am already afraid to ask for them. 'Can I have two of those there?' I asked the other day. Said the saleswoman: 'Do you mean the tompoucs or the sprinkles?' That was a bit of a laugh then."

Protest at Dam Square
It is right, Muller says, that unconscious and latent racism should be questioned. "But why suddenly so aggressive? It also bothered me that Rutte said that Zwarte Piet is now Zwarte Piet and that he should stay that way. That the prime minister was then brought to a different understanding with arguments is nice. That's how it should be: change as the outcome of a public debate. That is so much better than destruction by a wild iconoclasm. Not destruction, but change." Thousands spontaneously marching up Dam Square to condemn discrimination, Muller looked up and he also thought for a moment: why don't Jewish youths ever stand there to denounce the racism against them? Because that is perhaps Muller's biggest concern, the flare-up of anti-Semitism. "It saddens me to hear young Jewish people say that they are considering leaving, that their future is no longer here. They are fucking Dutch and feel threatened in their own country. If that's not worrying.

" That the Jewish restaurant HaCarmel on Amstelveenseweg has been besieged four times in just over two years frustrates Muller. "Smashing the windows of Jews, that's just 1939 huh. It's bad that something like that happens, and it's just as bad that it can repeat itself because the mayor doesn't do anything about it. Yes, Halsema went there for dinner once to show that she is sorry too. But she has to protect that business, provide surveillance." Does Muller know why it is that there are not also mass demonstrations against anti-Semitism on Dam Square? "No, not actually, but I do know that many Jews prefer not to put too much emphasis on being Jewish. That's what caused the Shoah. After the war, a lot of Jews no longer wanted to be Jewish. They wanted to live in the shadows, to have peace. Jewish people became more sensitive, more anxious." According to Muller, Jewish discomfort is also the reason why the mezuzah, the traditional text box, is increasingly missing from the doorpost of Jewish homes. And it may also be the reason that Dam Square does not fill up with outraged Jews.

Wed - November 2020 - Interview with Salo Muller

Salo Muller (Amsterdam, 1936), Ajax physiotherapist from 1960 to 1972, wrote several books and successfully fought for NS compensation for Shoah victims. He was recently promoted to officer in the order of Oranje-Nassau.

My mother I see in front of me every day

"The vicar of the Frisian village where I was in hiding as a six-year-old boy said: 'Japje - that was my pseudonym, Japje Mulder - if you pray hard enough, God will make sure your parents come back'. I did that, on my knees, every night before going to bed, until the day - two years after the war - when I received a letter from the Red Cross: 'We regret to inform you that your parents have died'. Deceased. It really did say. They didn't just die, they were gassed. In Auschwitz. My mother on 12 February 1943, my father a few months later, on 30 April. I think it's brave, if you dare to say that God intended to take your loved ones to Himself; if your faith is so strong that you can accept something so horrible, but I can't. I cannot believe in a God who approves of the bestial slaughter of millions of people.

And if my parents had survived the war? That's a good question... Then the impossible would have happened and God had to exist. And then there would have been a religious man sitting opposite you right now."

Volkskrant – Juli 2019

De Volkskrant - 'The Dutch are nice, ordinary people. But it is true that 80 per cent were on the wrong side'

As a child, Salo Muller (83), a former Ajax physiotherapist, was in hiding with host families; his parents were murdered in Auschwitz. 'I still assume Germans are not pro-Jewish.'
Zith his own parents were on the train to Westerbork. But that is not why Salo Muller (83) kept going until he got the NS to pay compensation to the Jews, Roma and Sinti who were transported to the camp during World War II. 'I am a pit bull. If I want something, I will go through hoops. In case of an unjustified fine, I also go to court.'

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NS to pay damages

For the first time, NS will pay individual compensation to Holocaust survivors and relatives. This puts an end to the battle between Salo Muller and the railway company. Muller accuses NS of making millions from transporting Jews to Westerbork during World War II.

"We have jointly decided not to come to a legal stand-off, but to set up a committee," said Roger van Boxtel, NS chief executive, following today's consultation with Muller. "That committee will figure out how we can shape an individual compensation to those affected."

Link to NOS

Compensation from NS

"It is wonderful news," said the chairman of the Dutch Auschwitz Committee, Jacques Grishaver on the decision that the NS will pay individual compensation to Holocaust survivors and relatives. "It is good that it has been resolved this way, because it was an unsavoury affair. This gesture shows a piece of recognition."

A committee will find out how many people can claim compensation. Grishaver: "I hope the committee is formed soon and gets to work. Every day, people die who have experienced it themselves. It should all not take too long now."

Link to NOS

Historic Holocaust compensation from NS

The man, who after a years-long battle against the NS managed to get the railway company to pay compensation to Holocaust survivors and relatives, was in hiding in Friesland during World War II. Salo Muller is his name, but during the war they called him Japje.

The NS transported more than 100,000 Jews during the war, at the behest of the German occupiers. They died in concentration camps. The railway company allegedly made millions from this. The company will now pay individual compensation to victims and relatives of the Holocaust.

Link to Omrop Fryslan

NS to pay damages

The NS is to pay compensation to Holocaust survivors and relatives for the first time. The decision follows a dispute between the NS and Salo Muller (82), whose parents were murdered in Auschwitz. Muller accuses the railway company of earning millions during the war from transporting Jews to Westerbork camp, a gateway on the way to the Nazis' death camps.

An NS committee will consider on moral grounds who will be compensated and how. 'We have jointly decided not to come to a legal standoff,' chief executive Roger van Boxtel told the TV programme Nieuwsuur on Tuesday. Muller, a former Ajax physiotherapist, demanded last year that NS pay compensation to Holocaust victims and their relatives.

Link to Volkskrant

This Holocaust survivor convinced a Dutch rail firm to make repairs

During World War II, hundreds of thousands of Jews in the Netherlands paid for the train, operated by the Dutch state-run company NS, which later deported to them death camps. The parents of Holocaust survivor Salo Muller were on one of those trains.

After seeing France's rail company, SNCF, pay a compensation fund to Jewish survivors in the United States, Muller decided to act. He met with the director of NS and discussed performing a similar action for Jewish families in the Netherlands.

Link to Pri.org

Sven Kockelmann ; Radio 1

Salo Muller: 'By spring NS must have paid compensation'. NS must pay financial compensation to victims and relatives of the Holocaust by this spring. A committee should be appointed this year to oversee this. So says Salo Muller, who has spent 2.5 years pinning his hopes on Dutch Railways, in the radio programme 1op1.

Link to Radio 1

NOS: NS compensation for damages

At Salo Muller (82), the personal reactions are pouring in. Via e-mail, via Facebook, via cards to flowers. He sometimes bristles at them. "People probably thought I had long since quit after all this time, but yesterday I suddenly came up with the news: guys, I did it!"

After years of struggle, Muller has agreed a settlement with the NS. The railway company will pay individual compensation to Holocaust survivors and relatives. During World War II, the NS transported Jews to Westerbork and made money from it.

Link to NOS

How Holocaust victim Salo Muller forced NS to pay damages

The NS is going to pay compensation to (children of) Holocaust victims 'for moral-ethical reasons'. Salo Muller (82), whose parents were transported by the NS to Westerbork camp in 1942 and then gassed in Auschwitz, fought the railways for almost three years. 'I didn't expect them to change tack.'

Link to Volkskrant

Jewish organisations happy with NS compensation

Both organisations do, however, urge haste. "Hopefully it will happen soon, because the survivors are getting older and so there are fewer and fewer of them," said Auschwitz Committee chairman Jacques Grishaver.

Grishaver says he can only applaud the compensation. "Muller has done that beautifully," he says referring to Salo Muller, a Holocaust survivor.

Link to Parole

How Holocaust victim Salo Muller forced NS to pay damages

The NS is going to pay compensation to (children of) Holocaust victims 'for moral-ethical reasons'. Salo Muller (82), whose parents were transported by the NS to Westerbork camp in 1942 and then gassed in Auschwitz, fought the railways for almost three years. 'I didn't expect them to change tack.'

Link to Volkskrant

12

Books

400+

Lectures

13+

year as Physiotherapist at Ajax

95+

Schools

2019 - 2025 © Copyright - Salo Muller
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