From Reuters:
“The Netherlands unveils its
first national Holocaust monument”
A monument listing 102,163 Dutch
victims of the Holocaust was unveiled by King Willem-Alexander in Amsterdam on
Sunday, the first national memorial to be built in the Netherlands. The
monument, designed by Daniel Libeskind, 75, who lost relatives in the
Holocaust, lies in the centre of the Dutch capital and is a labyrinth of brick
walls that, when seen from above, form Hebrew letters reading "in
remembrance". Each stone carries the name of a Jew, Roma or Sinti who was
deported from the Netherlands and who died in Nazi concentration camps during
World War II. It is the first memorial to commemorate all the victims from
across the Netherlands in one place. "It gives the feeling that they
really existed," said Hetty de Roode, a Jew whose parents, brother and
sister all died in the camps. De Roode, who attended the unveiling, survived by
hiding with a family in the north of the Netherlands.
Most of the Jewish population in
the Netherlands was deported during the German occupation. "It's a black
page in the history of our country," Prime Minister Mark Rutte said.
"It forces us to question whether more should have been done to prevent it
and to realise that even these days anti-Semitism is never far away." Libeskind,
who also oversaw the masterplan for the Ground Zero memorial in New York, said
it was overwhelming to see his design unveiled in the Dutch capital and added:
"It's a warning to us all what can happen in so-called civilised
societies." Construction of the memorial faced years of delays, amid
disputes about where it should be built, the cost and the design. The 15
million euro ($17.5 million) monument was funded by private donations and
Amsterdam and other municipalities.
^ it only took them 76 years to
do this. ^
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.