Dutch National Holocaust Museum

Last updated
Dutch National Holocaust Museum
2024 NHM, Plantage Middenlaan 27, Asd (1).jpg
Dutch National Holocaust Museum
Established2024
LocationPlantage Middenlaan 27
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Coordinates 52°22′01″N4°54′40″E / 52.36692°N 4.91099°E / 52.36692; 4.91099
Website www.jck.nl
Yellow Star of David with text "Jood" (Jew) that Dutch Jews were obliged to wear during the German occupation of the Netherlands in the Second World War. Dutch Jewish star.jpg
Yellow Star of David with text "Jood" (Jew) that Dutch Jews were obliged to wear during the German occupation of the Netherlands in the Second World War.

The Dutch National Holocaust Museum (Dutch : 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]

Contents

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."

Public reaction

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. Additionally, there was extensive reporting in the international press, largely due to the presence of protestors who objected to the attendance of the President of Israel Isaac Herzog, due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas War. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] About a thousand demonstrators gathered near the site, kept at a distance by police.

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.” [1]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Goor</span> City in Overijssel, Netherlands

Goor is a city in the Dutch province of Overijssel. It is located about 20 kilometres (12 mi) west of Enschede. Goor received city rights in 1263.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Jews in the Netherlands</span> Ethnic group

The history of the Jews in the Netherlands largely dates to the late 16th century and 17th century, when Sephardic Jews from Portugal and Spain began to settle in Amsterdam and a few other Dutch cities, because the Netherlands was an unusual center of religious tolerance. Since Portuguese Jews had not lived under rabbinic authority for decades, the first generation of those embracing their ancestral religion had to be formally instructed in Jewish belief and practice. This contrasts with Ashkenazi Jews from central Europe, who, although persecuted, lived in organized communities. Seventeenth-century Amsterdam was referred to as the "Dutch Jerusalem" for its importance as a center of Jewish life. In the mid 17th century, Ashkenazi Jews from central and eastern Europe migrated. Both groups migrated for reasons of religious liberty, to escape persecution, now able to live openly as Jews in separate organized, autonomous Jewish communities under rabbinic authority. They were also drawn by the economic opportunities in the Netherlands, a major hub in world trade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ido Abram</span> Indonesian academic

Isidoor Bert Hans "Ido" Abram, was a Dutch educator and writer on the nature of Jewishness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Verzetsmuseum</span> Museum in Plantage, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

The Resistance Museum is a museum located in the Plantage neighbourhood in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The Dutch Resistance Museum, chosen as the best historical museum of the Netherlands, aims to tell the story of the Dutch people in World War II. From 14 May 1940 to 5 May 1945, the Netherlands were occupied by Nazi Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Citroen</span> Dutch painter and photographer

Roelof Paul Citroen was a German-born Dutch artist, art educator and co-founder of the New Art Academy in Amsterdam. Among his best-known works are the photo-montage Metropolis and the 1949 Dutch postage stamps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henri Max Corwin</span> Dutch businessman, philatelist, and humanitarian

Henri Max Corwin was a Dutch businessman, philatelist and humanitarian. He became famous both for his efforts to shield Jewish victims of Nazi persecution during World War II, and later for his efforts to document instruments of propaganda utilized during national conflict.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abraham Asscher</span> Dutch Jewish businessman and politician (1880 – 1950)

Abraham Asscher was a Dutch Jewish businessman from Amsterdam, a politician, and a leader of his community who attained notoriety for his role during the German occupation of the Netherlands (1940–1945).

The Jodenbuurt is a neighbourhood of Amsterdam, Netherlands. For centuries before World War II, it was the center of the Dutch Jews of Amsterdam — hence, its name. It is best known as the birthplace of Baruch Spinoza, the home of Rembrandt, and the Jewish ghetto of Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Holocaust in the Netherlands</span>

The Holocaust in the Netherlands was organized by Nazi Germany in occupied Netherlands as part of the Holocaust across Europe during the Second World War. The Nazi occupation in 1940 immediately began disrupting the norms of Dutch society, separating Dutch Jews in multiple ways from the general Dutch population. The Nazis used existing Dutch civil administration as well as the Dutch Jewish Council "as an invaluable means to their end".

The Dutch Israelite Religious Community of The Hague is the Ashkenazi Orthodox Jewish community in The Hague and is a member of the Nederlands-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap (NIK).

The Committee for Jewish Refugees was a Dutch charitable organization that operated from 1933 to 1941. At first, it managed the thousands of Jewish refugees who were fleeing the Nazi regime in Germany. These refugees were crossing the border from Germany into the Netherlands. The committee largely decided which of the refugees could remain in the Netherlands. The others generally returned to Germany. For the refugees permitted to stay, it provided support in several ways. These included direct financial aid and assistance with employment and with further emigration.

<i><span title="Dutch-language text"><i lang="nl">Vrije Groepen Amsterdam</i></span></i>

The Vrije Groepen Amsterdam was a federation of Dutch resistance groups in Amsterdam during the final years of World War II. The VGA was founded in late 1943 to coordinate the activities of Amsterdam's resistance groups. The groups counted some 350 members, about a fifth of whom had a Jewish or part-Jewish background. The VGA focused primarily on hiding Jews from the Nazis and caring for Jews in hiding. Their activities included distributing falsified identification documents, as well as ration cards and financial support, to Jews and others in hiding and to members of the resistance movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knowledge of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and German-occupied Europe</span> To what extent the Holocaust was known contemporaneously

The question of how much knowledge German civilians had about the Holocaust whilst it was happening has been studied and debated by historians. In Nazi Germany, it was an open secret among the population by 1943, Peter Longerich argues, but some authors place it even earlier. After the war, many Germans claimed that they were ignorant of the crimes perpetrated by the Nazi regime, a claim associated with the stereotypical phrase "Davon haben wir nichts gewusst".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Betty Goudsmit-Oudkerk</span> Dutch resistance member (1924–2020)

Betty Goudsmit-Oudkerk was a Dutch resistance member.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Aloysia Löwenfels</span> German religious sister (1915–1942)

Maria Aloysia Löwenfels PHJC, was a German religious sister. She converted from Judaism to Catholicism. In 1936, she fled to the convent of the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ in Lutterade, Netherlands. In 1938, she was confirmed as a novice. On 9 August 1942, she was murdered in the gas chambers of concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. In 2015, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Limburg announced that a beatification process had been started.

Dan Michman is a Jewish historian. He is the head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and incumbent of the John Najmann Chair of Holocaust studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herman Heukels</span>

Herman Heukels was a Dutch photographer and Nazi collaborator during the German occupation of the Netherlands. Heukels' photographs are key documentation of the Holocaust in the Netherlands; his Nazi sympathies gave him access denied others. In particular, Heukels was present at the large razzia (roundup) of Dutch Jews in Amsterdam on 20 June 1943, just prior to their deportation, and took photographs of the event. That raid saw over 5,000 Jews deported from Amsterdam; most were eventually killed at Nazi concentration camps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Network of War Collections</span>

The Network of War Collections is a partnership of over 250 archival institutions, museums, remembrance centers and libraries in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the former Dutch colonial empire, and internationally to bring together scattered collections of resources pertaining to World War II. The network is financed by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport and receives a contribution from the National Fund for Peace, Freedom and Veteran Care.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Holocaust Names Memorial (Amsterdam)</span> National Holocaust Names Memorial in Amsterdam, the Netherlands

The National Holocaust Names Memorial (Amsterdam) (Dutch: Holocaust Namenmonument) is since 2021 the Dutch national memorial for the Holocaust and the Porajmos at Amsterdam. It commemorates the approximately 102,000 Jewish victims from the Netherlands who were arrested by the Nazi regime during the German occupation of the country (1940-1945), deported and mostly murdered in the Auschwitz and Sobibor death camps, as well as 220 Roma and Sinti victims.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewish cemetery, Hoorn</span> Dutch cemetery

The Jewish cemetery in Hoorn can refer to the original Jewish cemetery on the outskirts of the Dutch city of Hoorn, or to a separate section of today's public cemetery. That Jewish section was opened in 1968, after the old Jewish cemetery was cleared for road construction.

References

  1. 1 2 "Joods Cultureel Kwartier. Nationaal Holocaust Museum". jck.nl (in Dutch). Joods Cultureel Kwartier, Amsterdam. 2024. Retrieved 19 March 2024.
  2. "Speech by King Willem-Alexander at the opening of the National Holocaust Museum". royal-house.nl. Royal House of the Netherlands. Retrieved 19 March 2024.
  3. "Koning opent Nationaal Holocaustmuseum. Persberichten (Translation: The King inaugurates the National Holocaust Museum). Press releases". jck.nl (in Dutch). Joods Cultureel Kwartier, Amsterdam. 26 February 2024. Retrieved 19 March 2024.
  4. "Israel's president Isaac Herzog faces Gaza protest at Dutch Holocaust museum". 2024-03-10. Retrieved 2024-09-05.
  5. Boztas, Senay (10 March 2024). "'You cannot look away': Amsterdam Holocaust museum opens amid protests". theguardian.com. Guardian News & Media Limited.
  6. Bennet, Ella (10 March 2024). "New Holocaust Museum Opens in the Netherlands Amid Israeli President's Controversial Visit". msn.com. Microsoft. Retrieved 19 March 2024.[ dead link ]
  7. Russell, Rachel (10 March 2024). "Herzog's visit to Holocaust Museum sparks protests. BBC News". msn.com. Microsoft. Retrieved 19 March 2024.[ dead link ]
  8. Capelle, Julie (10 March 2024). "From AFP News. Protests As Israel President At Dutch Holocaust Museum Opening". barrons.com. Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Retrieved 19 March 2024.

Further reading

Rescue of Jewish children from the Amsterdam child day care

Holocaust in the Netherlands