lood Money Does Not Pale with Apologies – The Nico Gunzburg Foundation Calls NMBS and the Belgian State to Account for Complicity in the Holocaust
The “Group of Wise Men” commissioned by the Belgian government and NMBS to examine the deportation-train dossier has, according to the Nico Gunzburg Foundation and the Royal Association of Jewish Communities, produced not a report of the wise but a report of shame. Their own research shows that NMBS not only provided logistical support to the Nazi machine between 1942 and 1944, it was also paid for doing so. This was therefore no forced service but a profitable undertaking that helped to perpetrate the mass murder of Belgian and foreign Jews.
The legal meaning of an apology
Under current Belgian liability law, consolidated in Book 6 of the new Civil Code, fault is the cornerstone on which compensation is imposed. As soon as a wrongdoer explicitly acknowledges that fault, victims no longer have to prove the wrongdoing; the debate shifts automatically to the extent and form of redress. When NMBS publicly declared on 22 April 2025 that it “regrets” its historical responsibility, it thereby acknowledged its guilt. In legal terms an apology is thus more than a symbolic gesture—it is a binding confession of liability. The Nico Gunzburg Foundation is now in legal proceedings against NMBS and against the Belgian State.
That confession triggers the duty of full reparation anchored in international law as well. The Chorzów Factory principle of the International Court of Justice and the UN Basic Principles on the Right to Remedy (2005) both state that serious human-rights violations cannot be atoned for merely symbolically. True reparation has three equal pillars: satisfaction (apologies, commemoration), compensation (financial) and, where possible, restitution in integrum. Only together do they constitute “full reparation.”
Moreover, war crimes and crimes against humanity do not prescribe. Belgium can still bring civil and criminal proceedings today—or negotiate a settlement similar to those agreed with SNCF and NS. NMBS was paid per deportee during the war—worth roughly fifteen million euros today. That is literally crime money which, under article 43quinquies of the Penal Code, can be confiscated. It cannot be silently left in the coffers of a public company.
International precedents
Rail and financial institutions elsewhere have both morally and financially paid for comparable wrongs:
- NS (Netherlands) has paid between €5 000 and €15 000 per survivor or heir since 2019.
- SNCF (France) paid 60 million dollars into a special fund in 2014.
- Swiss banks and German industry created the Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft compensation fund.
All these precedents show that apologies were only the opening act; real redress followed when the blood money was returned.
Road-map for a Belgian redress mechanism
- Public-law fund. The historical transport proceeds—at least €15 million—form the start-up capital, topped up annually with a share of NMBS dividends.
- Individual compensation. A streamlined procedure should award a flat-rate payment to every living victim or heir, faster than the Dutch model.
- Collective revival. Part of the fund finances education, social care, cultural heritage and the security of Jewish institutions.
- Transparency. Full opening of NMBS archives and a travelling educational exhibition.
- Parliamentary oversight. A committee with sanctioning powers ensures that NMBS meets its obligations.
No refuge in geopolitics
Arguments that “current international tensions” hinder redress are legally irrelevant. Crimes against humanity are jus cogens: no domestic interest or economic pressure can suspend the duty to repair them. Belgium already advocates restitution abroad—for example of colonial art—and must be consistent at home.
Conclusion
The announced apology is essential, but it is itself a formal confession of guilt. That makes financial and structural compensation unavoidable. Until NMBS sets up a substantial, transparently managed reparations scheme, the blood money remains red and the injustice unatoned. The Nico Gunzburg Foundation will therefore, if necessary in court, keep demanding that NMBS and the Belgian state shoulder their full responsibility, put the past right and actively help revive Jewish life in Belgium.
I was calmly eating my Belgian fries—perhaps one of Europe’s last undisputed contributions to world civilization—while watching the Flemish channel VTM. The sun was shining, the sky was clear, and that of course meant it was time for a national ritual: discussing climate change on television.
Because nothing pairs better with a warm, dry day than a panel of concerned experts explaining why everything is actually getting worse.
The news anchor, with the appropriate dose of mild existential concern, asked the question of the day: Why is Europe warming faster than other continents? A fair question. You would expect a complex answer about ocean currents, atmospheric dynamics, or perhaps decades of industrial legacy.
Instead, the explanation took a turn that nearly cost me my appetite.
According to the expert, Europe’s enthusiastic green policies may have… unintended side effects. Fewer emissions mean fewer particles in the air—particles that used to reflect sunlight and thus formed a kind of atmospheric “shield.” In other words: by cleaning the air, we may also be removing a protective layer against the sun.
At that moment, my fries became secondary. I was witnessing a philosophical paradox unfolding live on television: Europe, in its moral quest to save the planet, may be making itself more vulnerable to exactly what it is trying to combat.
You would almost expect a Nobel Prize for irony.
And so we naturally arrive at the thought experiment of the day. If fewer emissions reduce that protective layer, then the often-criticized “Drill Baby Drill” philosophy might deserve reconsideration—not as environmental damage, but as… climate management.
Absurd? Certainly. But no more absurd than pretending that complex systems respond linearly to idealistic policies.
After all, Nobel Prizes have been awarded for raising awareness about global warming. By that logic, one might almost expect that someone like Donald Trump would at least receive a nomination for proposing counterbalances—however controversial. When one side of the debate is treated as untouchable doctrine, the other side quickly begins to look like heresy… until reality asserts itself.
Because here lies the uncomfortable truth: nature does not follow ideology.
In life, and apparently also in the environment, everything revolves around balance. Push too far—whether toward unchecked industrialization or toward uncompromising green orthodoxy—and the system reacts. Not with applause, but with correction.
When policy becomes religion, nuance is the first casualty. And nature, unlike voters, does not negotiate. It restores equilibrium.
Perhaps that is the real lesson, somewhere between a portion of fries and a television debate: environmental policy is not about purity. Not about absolutism. Not about moral superiority.
It is about balance.
And balance, by definition, requires more than one force.
Which may well be the most uncomfortable conclusion of all.
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