The names of more than 102,000 Dutch victims of the Holocaust can all finally be seen alongside each other at the National Holocaust Names Monument in Amsterdam.
Amidst a history lined with legal battles, the €15,000,000 monument, designed by the Polish-Jewish-American architect Daniel Libeskind, has finally been unveiled in the Dutch capital. It already has 3,200 visitation registrations.
In a sombre ceremony led by the chairman of the Dutch Auschwitz Committee, Jacques Grishaver along with King Willem-Alexander, the long awaited memorial was revealed.
It is the first memorial site in the Netherlands to display all the names, dates of birth, and age at death of Dutch victims of the Holocaust.
History
The significance of this monument stems from the fact that it commemorates the names of all Dutch Holocaust victims: both Jews, Sinti, and Roma — with rows of stones showing victims from the same families, and one stone displaying the name of a six-month-old infant who was gassed on their own mother’s arm.
Concerns over the location, size, and security threats were points of argument in the monument’s history until the construction was finally approved in 2019. The unveiling ceremony went thankfully uninterrupted on September 19, 2021.
Lies Caransa who lost her uncle, aunt, nephew, and grandparents in World War II expressed happiness with the new monument in her interview with RTL Nieuws.
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Feature Image: irisphoto11/Depositphotos