Task Force For International Cooperation On Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research

Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research in The Netherlands

The Netherlands has a long tradition when it comes to commemorating the Second World War. Every year the fallen are remembered - soldiers, resistance fighters, civil victims. Our focus is on the victims in the Netherlands (Europe) and of the war in the former Dutch colony of the Netherlands East Indies. Since the 1970s the Holocaust has become increasingly prominent in this regard. More than 100,000 Dutch Jews (out of 140,000 in total) were murdered during the war. This terrible tragedy continues to prompt many questions; how could this happen in the Netherlands?

Remembrance

The Netherlands Government is responsible for the infrastructure of commemoration and remembrance in the country through financing, amongst others, memorial centres and the National 4 and 5 May committee. The National 4 and 5 May Committee is responsible for the official national ceremonies in relation to May 4 and 5. The Netherlands has its own tradition in this respect. In the Netherlands, two days are set apart - one for the commemorative observances and one for festivities. On the evening of the 4^th of May, the Dutch victims of WWII and victims of other wars and peace-keeping operations since the war are remembered. At 8 pm a two-minute period of silence is observed everywhere in the Netherlands. Her Majesty the Queen and her son the Prince of Orange lay a wreath at the National Monument on Dam Square in Amsterdam, in presence of government officials and members of Parliament. Liberation Day is celebrated on the 5^th of May, and marks the end of the occupation by Nazi Germany during World War II.  Liberation Day is celebrated with festivals around the Netherlands.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2011

The Netherlands has a diverse landscape of remembrance, with different memorial dates throughout the year, connected to different victim groups and histories. The official national memorial service for all war victims since the outbreak of the Second World War takes place on May 4^th. This ceremony brings together victims groups to share their personal stories, memories and histories. January 27^th is acknowledged as the day of remembrance of the liberation of Auschwitz. There are several Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration events all over the Netherlands, including in Amsterdam and The Hague. The events included lectures, a testimony by an Auschwitz survivor, Jewish community commemorations, and educational programs in schools. For a comprehensive list of events, please visit www.holocaust-memorial-day.nl. A commemoration for Jom HaShoa is held each year at the Hollandsche Schouwburg in Amsterdam, that is attended mostly by members of the Jewish community.

Throughout the year, dozens of additional commemorations are held in the Netherlands for a large variety of people, including (for example) victims of Ravensbrück, Auschwitz, the raid in Putten, forced labourers, hostages, and more.

Permanent reminders are present in the form of memorial centres financed by the Government: at Amersfoort, Vught, and Westerbork, for example.

Places in other countries where Dutch people died are also of great importance to the Netherlands Government. In recent years monuments have been unveiled at Bergen-Belsen and Theresienstadt, and the Dutch pavilion in Auschwitz has been refurbished. The Netherlands is currently working with Israel, Poland and Slovakia on the realisation of a memorial at Sobibor, where 34000 Dutch Jews were killed.

Duties in the field of improving significance, information, education, communication, coordinating, and structuring nationwide activities are of equal importance. The Netherlands Government focuses a great deal of attention on cooperation between specialists with the relevant expertise and government bodies.

The Netherlands is an original signatory to the Stockholm Declaration, and has been a member of the Task Force for International cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research (ITF) ever since. It is important that ITF member countries adopt a collective view on the possible forms of commemoration for the Holocaust and consider how they can help other countries by sharing their experiences. This is why the Netherlands are engaged in projects in Bosnia and Ukraine. But apart from being there to help, the Netherlands are there to learn. Awareness of the Holocaust in the Netherlands is strongly focused on the events that took place in our own country; the Holocaust outside the Netherlands, the sheer magnitude of the drama, is less well known.

At a time when the world seems to be getting smaller, it is extremely important to realise that what happened in the Netherlands was part of a bigger story. The ITF is an excellent platform for getting to know one another, exchanging and comparing methods, and putting shared knowledge to good use.

Education

The Netherlands Government includes World War Two and the Holocaust in particular into its national teaching curriculum. The subject is taught in every type of school. The Government also has a project policy whereby organisations can submit proposals on how to support teaching in this area. Funding by the Dutch government for education  is made available through the National 4 and 5 May Committee.

Public information policy is always looking for connections with the present to highlight the contemporary significance. Much of the teaching material is designed to provoke discussion. Policy also focuses on providing supplementary materials, one such example being 'The Search', a book in comic strip format developed by the Anne Frank Foundation, and financed by the Government. Thanks to ITF contacts, this book has been translated, amongst others into German and Polish, in total now 12 languages.

Monitoring is important here. How much does the average Dutch person know and understand? What areas should be given special attention, and what are the appropriate target groups? In the past years teacher training, junior secondary education in the 14-15 year age group, and the international angle were policy priorities.

Research

The Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) was founded in 1945. Following the Stockholm Declaration, the Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (CHGS) was set up. Here research specifically related to the Holocaust is carried out. In 2010 the two institutions merged and are now the 'NIOD' together. Their staff teach at the University of Amsterdam. International cooperation is a priority when it comes to research.

A good example of NIODs international work is the coordination of the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI). EHRI's main objective is to support the European Holocaust research community by giving it integrated online access to dispersed Holocaust related sources all over Europe and Israel and by encouraging collaborative research in multi-national research teams. To this end, 20 organisations from 13 countries will work together in a four-year project funded by the EU.

Apart from its research, archives and teaching tasks, the NIOD provides post-graduate courses and fulfils a specific public function in relation to the Holocaust and other genocides. In recent years for example, experts from the NIOD  have participated in public discussions in the Netherlands concerning Bosnia and the Armenian genocide.

The government invested in the temporary 'Heritage of War' (Erfgoed van de Oorlog) programme, providing 23,7 million euros in funding. The biggest challenge is how to tell the story when there are no surviving eyewitnesses anymore. This is why the emphasis was on preserving as much of the valuable material - and unlocking as many of its secrets - as possible; recording the accounts of eyewitnesses, preserving historical records, photos and films, and building websites where everyone can find the information they are looking for. Digitized national collections were formed, such as the national photo bank Image Bank WW2 (www.beeldbankwo2.nl), where more than 200000 photos from 18 different archives can be freely accessed. Various documents and websites were created, using Heritage of War materials and eyewitness reports to reach a wide  audience. For example the online exhibitions on the website http://www.tweedewereldoorlog.nl, were the outcomes of the Heritage-project are also shown. The programme 'Heritage of War' has ended, but the NIOD is responsible for the heritage in the future:www.niod.knaw.nl (Netwerk oorlogsbronnen.)

The Anne Frank House Online portal represents a central source of knowledge, news and education about Anne Frank, the persecution of the Jews, and related contemporary themes.

The Secret Annex Online is a 3D version of the house at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam where Anne Frank lived in hiding during World War Two. In this three-dimensional online environment, visitors can explore the front of the house and the secret annex as it was then, and hear stories that explain in greater depth what happened there.  You can also browse through a visual timeline in which Anne Frank's story is placed in the context of important historical events. The Anne Frank Timeline starts in 1914 with the outbreak of World War One and Otto Frank's conscription into the German army and continues through to today including the significance of the diary and the Anne Frank House.