Dutch King Willem-Alexander officially opened his country’s first Holocaust Museum on Sunday (10/3). Not far away, demonstrators angry at Israel’s military aggression in Gaza protested against the presence of the Israeli President, who also delivered a speech at the ceremony.
“This museum shows us the devastating impact that anti-Semitic movements have had,” the king said at a solemn gathering at a nearby synagogue, which was also attended by Dutch Holocaust survivors.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said the museum sent a clear statement of the horrors born of anti-Semitic hatred and racism. “It will not happen again. “Today, hatred and anti-Semitism are growing throughout the world and we must fight it together,” he said.
Meanwhile, less than a kilometer away from the event, protesters objected to Herzog’s presence. This demonstration was attended by, among others, Jewish groups who urged an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Hundreds of people gathered waving Palestinian flags and banners and chanting “Never Again Is Now,” a reference to their belief that Israel has committed genocide in the Palestinian territories.
They jeered and shouted slogans when officials arrived at the museum. “There is only one place for him here and that is the ICC,” said Estelle Jilissen, a 25-year-old consultant, referring to the International Criminal Court (ICC) where alleged war criminals are tried.
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Protesters hung signs on street lampposts reading: “Detour to the International Criminal Court” along the officials’ route.
“Many Jews also opposed (Herzog’s) arrival here because of the pain of their ancestors, the suffering of their ancestors was tarnished by the arrival of this president,” Jilissen said.
The Holocaust Museum, in the heart of Amsterdam’s Jewish quarter, will open to the public on Monday (11/3), almost 80 years after World War II ended.
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The striped uniforms of prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Nazi era, letters and moving photographs, are on display at the museum along with 2,500 other objects.
Before the war and Nazi occupation of Germany, the Netherlands was home to a Jewish community of around 140,000 people, mostly concentrated in Amsterdam. By the time the war ended, an estimated 75% had been killed by the Nazis.
The opening of the museum comes at a time of increasing anti-Semitism in the Netherlands. The number of anti-Semitic incidents will double by 2023, according to a report by the government’s national coordinator for combating anti-Semitism released last month.
In an incident that made headlines recently, a group of unidentified people made a swastika sign (a Nazi symbol) at a synagogue in the southern city of Middelburg. (AFP/M-3)
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