Dutch retailers reported to have stopped offering disputed Dachau biography

Bol, Bruna and Amazon were no longer offering a biography of 99-year-old Willem Wilbrink on Thursday evening, Dutch news site Nieuws.nl reported. The change follows questions about his account of imprisonment in the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. [2] Bol’s product page remained online but listed the book as unavailable.

Published in 2023, *Getekend voor het leven in Dachau en Indië* was written by Laurens van Aggelen. It recounts Wilbrink’s claim that he was held at Dachau and helped save 40 people there. Hans Vogelzang of *Historisch Nieuwsblad* said he found no corroboration for the account in the sources he examined and could not find Wilbrink on a Dachau prisoner list. [1]

Wilbrink has rejected the magazine’s conclusions and questioned whether the camp records are complete. The Dutch war documentation institute NIOD separately told news agency ANP that his name was absent from a list of Dutch Dachau prisoners, but said that did not establish that he had never been there. [1] [5]

Why the retailers’ listings changed remains unclear. Nieuws.nl, citing NOS, attributed the move to a request from the publisher. Trade publication *Boekblad* linked it instead to a boycott appeal made on 13 October by a campaign group and members of an association of resistance fighters’ children. Both may have happened, but neither account establishes what prompted each retailer’s decision. Nieuws.nl said the publisher, White Elephant Media, could not be reached for comment on Thursday evening. [2] [3]