Amsterdam has opened a new Holocaust Museum, located just across the street from a theater that was used by Nazi occupiers as a concentration point for Dutch Jews being deported to death and labor camps, with the aim of telling “the whole story,” including not only resistance but also collaboration that took place during the Nazi occupation.
It comes at a time when there are few living survivors in the Netherlands, 80 years after liberation. Bart Wallen, professor of Jewish history at the University of Amsterdam says “This marks the transition of commemorations and telling the stories of the Holocaust by the survivors themselves to a museum that is more or less taking over the role.”
Across the street from the museum is the Hollandse Schouwburg, the theatre where the Nazis held over 46,000 people. It has now been opened as a memorial, and part of the Holocaust Museum. Just blocks away is the Dutch Resistance Museum, which also highlights how some Dutch people resisted, some collaborated, and many tried to keep their heads down.
Image: Survivors in the Holocaust Museum Photo: Raymond van Mil
