Dutch volunteers in the Waffen-SS

In July 1941, soldiers from the Dutch Volunteer Legion left for the Eastern Front. They were on their way to fight alongside the German army. On their train, they had written: ‘To the Jewish corner’ and ‘We're going to get Stalin’, and they had drawn swastikas.

The Dutch Volunteer Legion was part of the Waffen-SS. This was the military branch of the SS, the Nazi elite unit. The Waffen-SS fought along with the German army.

The Dutch Volunteer Legion had been founded with the purpose of supporting the Nazis. Most volunteers fought on the Eastern Front against the communist Soviet Union. In the Netherlands, there were around 22,000 volunteers.