Hundreds of people at the Holocaust memorial in Amsterdam

29 jan 2023 om 12:53Update: 41 minuten geleden

With a silent journey and a meeting that could be attended by the public for the first time after two corona years, Sunday is at the Mirror Monument ‘Never Again Auschwitz’ commemorated the Holocaust. This week marks the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp, the international symbol of the Holocaust. Hundreds of people came to the Wertheim Park in Amsterdam for the ceremony.

Joop van der Starre, one of the survivors of the Holocaust, among others, gave a speech and there was music. Prime Minister Mark Rutte and State Secretary Maarten van Ooijen (Public Health, Welfare and Sport) laid a wreath at the monument. The presidents of the Senate and House of Representatives, Jan Anthonie Bruijn and Vera Bergkamp, did the same.

One of the speakers at the annual National Holocaust Remembrance Day was Jacques Grishaver, the chairman of the Dutch Auschwitz Committee. “In recent years, my gloom has increased. Jew-hatred is emerging again, and racism and intolerance are on the rise. It makes me sad.”

In doing so, he referred to certain conspiracy theories and the racist expressions that were projected on the Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam during the turn of the year. “I am very shocked by that, and I condemn it in the strongest terms.” The Dutch Auschwitz Committee will advocate compulsory lessons about the Holocaust in secondary schools.

Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema also said that 78 years after the liberation, anti-Semitism is rising again. “Sometimes directly in violence, in threats, in chants. Sometimes hidden in ugly conspiracy theories, intended to fuel hatred. It’s unpalatable.” This year the mayor is visiting Auschwitz. She is doing this together with representatives of the Jewish community and young Amsterdammers, she announced.