Dutch National Holocaust Museum Explained

Dutch National Holocaust Museum
Coordinates:52.3669°N 4.911°W
Established:2024
Location:Plantage Middenlaan 27
Amsterdam, Netherlands

The Dutch National Holocaust Museum (Dutch; Flemish: '''Nationaal Holocaust museum''') is the first official museum on the Holocaust in the Netherlands. It is located in an historic building in the Jewish Cultural Quarter of Amsterdam, near a former child care center that played a role in rescuing Jewish children. The museum tells the story of the Holocaust through the lives of individual victimised men, women, and children. There is a floor-to-ceiling display of all the laws limiting and obliterating the rights of Jews in the Netherlands, who since the eighteenth century had been Dutch citizens with equal rights.[1]

Opening ceremony

Speech by Dutch king Willem-Alexander

The museum was inaugurated on March 10, 2024 by the Dutch monarch, Willem-Alexander.In his opening speech the king stated that the museum "brings to life the stories of people who were isolated from the rest of Dutch society, robbed of their rights, denied legal protection, rounded up, imprisoned, separated from their loved ones and murdered," identifying the root cause as antisemitism. "It is up to us all to stop antisemitism before it causes a hurricane that blows away everything that we hold dear. Let us never forget that Sobibor began in the Vondelpark with a sign that read ‘Forbidden for Jews’. There is no excuse for ignorance – no place for relativism, no room for ‘ifs and buts’. Knowledge of the Holocaust is not optional."[2] As the monarch put it in his speech, "The walls of the museum are covered – wall after wall after wall – with the many hundreds of ordinances, rules, instructions and bans: the small steps by which the Jewish population was set apart. Mandatory termination of employment. Forced registration. Banishment from public life. No bicycle. No telephone. No savings. No home. No freedom of movement. No life."

International interest

The opening was broadcast live on Dutch national television and covered extensively by the international press.[3] The opening ceremony on 10 March was held in the Portuguese Synagogue and attended by foreign dignitaries. There was extensive reporting in the international press, largely due to the presence of the President of Israel Isaac Herzog.[4] [5] [6] [7] About a thousand demonstrators gathered near the site, kept at a distance by police. They were protesting Israel's genocide in the Israel-Hamas War in Gaza.[8] [9] [10] [11] [12] Protesters’ target was the presence of the Israeli state president and not the establishment of the museum or its opening itself.

History of the Jews in Amsterdam

The city of Amsterdam played a major role in the history of the Jews in the Netherlands. Three-quarters of the country's Jews, the highest percentage in Western Europe, in total 102,000 people, were killed during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during 1940–1945. Scholars see the concentration of the Jewish population in one place, the single-mindedness of Nazi policies to separate Jews from the general Dutch population and then to eliminate them, the cooperation of Dutch authorities, as well as the Jewish Council in Amsterdam as factors resulting in the high percentage of Jewish deaths. The postwar Dutch population was seemingly not interested in the suffering of its Jewish population under the Nazis, but the museum now invites visitors to “Immerse yourself in the history of the persecution of the Jews.”

See also

External links

Further reading

Rescue of Jewish children from the Amsterdam child day care

Holocaust in the Netherlands

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Joods Cultureel Kwartier. Nationaal Holocaust Museum . jck.nl . Joods Cultureel Kwartier, Amsterdam . 2024 . 19 March 2024 . Dutch.
  2. Web site: Speech by King Willem-Alexander at the opening of the National Holocaust Museum . 19 March 2024 . royal-house.nl . Royal House of the Netherlands.
  3. Web site: Koning opent Nationaal Holocaustmuseum. Persberichten (Translation: The King inaugurates the National Holocaust Museum). Press releases. . 26 February 2024 . Dutch . 19 March 2024 . jck.nl . Joods Cultureel Kwartier, Amsterdam.
  4. Web site: 'You cannot look away’: Amsterdam Holocaust museum opens amid protests . Senay . Boztas . 10 March 2024 . theguardian.com . Guardian News & Media Limited.
  5. Web site: New Holocaust Museum Opens in the Netherlands Amid Israeli President’s Controversial Visit . Ella . Bennet . 10 March 2024 . msn.com . Microsoft . 19 March 2024.
  6. Web site: Herzog's visit to Holocaust Museum sparks protests. BBC News . Rachel . Russell . 10 March 2024 . msn.com . Microsoft . 19 March 2024.
  7. Web site: From AFP News. Protests As Israel President At Dutch Holocaust Museum Opening . Julie . Capelle . 10 March 2024 . barrons.com . Dow Jones & Company, Inc. . 19 March 2024.
  8. Web site: A Textbook Case of Genocide . 2024-08-21 . Jewish Currents . en.
  9. Segal . Raz . Daniele . Luigi . 2024-03-05 . Gaza as Twilight of Israel Exceptionalism: Holocaust and Genocide Studies from Unprecedented Crisis to Unprecedented Change . Journal of Genocide Research . 1–10 . 10.1080/14623528.2024.2325804 . 1462-3528.
  10. Lederman . Shmuel . 2024-01-29 . Gaza as a Laboratory 2.0 . Journal of Genocide Research . 1–6 . 10.1080/14623528.2024.2309706 . 1462-3528.
  11. Web site: 800 western officials say the policies of their governments on Gaza "are contributing to grave violations of international law, war crimes and even ethnic cleansing or genocide" . 2024-08-21 . commonspace.eu . en.
  12. Web site: 2024-04-09 . Elizabeth Warren says she believes Israel’s war in Gaza will legally be considered a genocide - POLITICO . 2024-08-21 . web.archive.org.

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