Blood Money Doesn’t Pale with Apologies — Nico Gunzburg Foundation Calls NMBS and the Belgian State to Account for Holocaust Complicity

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

1. 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.
2. Individual compensation. A streamlined procedure should award a flat-rate payment to every living victim or heir, faster than the Dutch model.
3. Collective revival. Part of the fund finances education, social care, cultural heritage and the security of Jewish institutions.
4. Transparency. Full opening of NMBS archives and a travelling educational exhibition.
5. 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.