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Always remember: minister plans to safeguard more heritage from WWII

Kavana Desai
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Always remember: minister plans to safeguard more heritage from WWII

Ingrid van Engelshoven, the Minister of Culture in the Netherlands, is making plans to make sure heritage that is connected to the Second World War is safeguarded, reports NU.nl. 

“We are celebrating 75 years of freedom this year,” says Van Engelshoven. “For me, the memory of freedom also means that we continue to protect heritage from this period to tell stories about war and [the] occupation throughout the Netherlands. Stories that are not only about then but also about now: they teach us how important freedom is and how important it is to have an eye for the other.”

Amongst these plans, she wants the Waalsdorpervlakte and the Oranjehotel to be deemed as national heritage monuments, and to protect and conserve the Dutch parts of the Atlantic Wall.

Waalsdorpervlakte

The Waalsdorpervlakte is in a dune area called Meijendel in The Hague. It is an open space where 250 fighters from the Dutch resistance were shot and killed. It is also the site where one of the biggest commemorations takes place on May 4, the National Remembrance Day in the Netherlands. All the people who lost their lives are buried in Apeldoorn in the Field of Honor Loenen.

Monument_on_the_Waalsdorpervlakte
The Monument at Waalsdorpervlakte. Image: -JvL- from Netherlands [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Oranjehotel

It is a nickname given to a detention centre in Scheveningen. Between 1940 – 1945, more than 25,000 people were kept here to be interrogated by the German occupiers. Some were under the suspicion of and/or as a punishment for participation in the Dutch resistance activities. In September, it was restored to have a memorial centre inside the prison to remember and commemorate the victims.

oranjehotel
The prison at Scheveningen where 25,000 people were imprisoned, tortured and killed. Image: Nationaal Archief [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

Atlantic Wall

The Atlantic Wall was a coastal line of defence that was built along the coast of continental Europe, to prepare for a suspected invasion from the Allied Powers. Its construction in The Hague led to many residents being forced out, and the village of Scheveningen being surrounded by lines of bunkers and barriers. There are large parts of it in the Netherlands that have been conserved and protected.

Have you visited any of these World War 2 memorial sites in the Netherlands? Let us know in the comments below!

Feature Image: PL van Til/Wikimedia Commons

4000 schools closed: big national education sector strike to go ahead

Kavana Desai
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4000 schools closed: big national education sector strike to go ahead

The education sector in the Netherlands is all set to go on a national strike today.  The strike was originally cancelled when the government had agreed to invest 460 million euros in the education sector. It was back on when it was clear that this would not solve any problems in the long term. 4000 schools have shut shop and campaigns are being organized all over the country, reports NU.nl.

“The biggest problem is that it is not structural money,” says Simone van Geest, spokesperson for education association AOb. “It is a very small patch with which you try to close a gaping gap temporarily. You can offer the teachers a little extra salary for one year, but after a year they have to return it. That is not a solution.” Four out of 10 schools in the Netherlands experience a teacher shortage. If this keeps going in the same way, the education sector expects 6000-8000 fulltime jobs to be cut out next year, reports NU.nl.

What kind of solution are the teachers looking for?

The strike has been organised to take place today as the House of Representatives is debating the budget for the education sector for the upcoming year. They are hoping to see a good, long-term investment plan which tries to solve all the problems the education sector is currently under.

Four out of ten schools suffer from a structural teacher shortage: the expectation is that schools will be short of six to eight thousand full-time jobs next year.

“Half a billion is the absolute minimum for an emergency package,” explains Van Geest. “The teacher problem has been going on for ten years and is now so large that a structural investment of 4 billion euros must certainly be made to make all problems disappear.”

What can we expect from the strike?

As of Tuesday afternoon, 3818 schools had registered for the strike today. Individual teachers have also taken it upon themselves to strike, so even if their school remains open, they will not be going in to teach any of the classes today.

Translation: “The entire Erasmus Bridge is full and the cars have to wait,” says AOb district director Jan Menger, who is walking along with the march in Rotterdam.

Additionally, the campaigns are going to be spread out all over the country. Teachers in Utrecht are organizing a “freeze”: they will be standing still in Utrecht Centraal. Strikers are expected on Dam Square in Amsterdam and Leeuwarden. Teachers n Alblasserdam are planning on baking pancakes for people in a retirement home. Some cities like Almere and Zwolle are going to have some platforms where teachers and others can come together to talk about the problems they encounter.
Is your child affected by the strike today? Are you teacher striking? What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments below!
Feature Image: Teresa Gubern/Supplied. 

Crossing Border festival 2019: our four favourite parts

Ailish Lalor
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Crossing Border festival 2019: our four favourite parts

Last week, the Crossing Border festival took place in The Hague. This is by far the one of the coolest festivals in the Netherlands, so we wanted to give you a run down of what went on- so you’re ready and waiting for next year’s, just like we are. Without further ado, these were our four favourite events at Crossing Border Festival 2019.

Hilary Mantel

If you read our piece about Crossing Border in October, you’ll know we were extremely excited about this event. Hilary Mantel is my favourite author of all time, but I don’t think I’d ever really seen her in conversation. She talked about the process of writing her first book, A Place of Greater Safety- and about how long she had to wait to see it hit the shelves. As an aspiring writer myself, that was really inspiring to hear about.

Hilary Mantel signing books at Crossing Border festival 2019. Image: Wouter Vellekoop/Crossing Borders

László Krasznahorkai

Another author we loved hearing talk was László Krasznahorkai: a Hungarian author whose work has become available to us English-speakers only within the last couple of years. He talked about the newest of his books to appear in translation: Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming. It’s coming out this fall, by the way. I was not personally familiar with Krasznahorkai’s work before, so it was really cool to listen to him talk and be pretty sure I had found my next favourite author.

Ongehoord

Now, Crossing Border festival is a combination of literature and music, as you know. So, one of the music events I was most excited about at this year’s festival was Ongehoord, a curated collection of musicians who performed varying pieces throughout at evening at Theater aan het Spui. We got everything from saxophones to flutes, and again, I found some really cool new musicians whose work I was excited to hear more of.

Son Mieux

In an awesome surprise performance, Camiel Meiresonne of Son Mieux played some of his best-know songs, including “Nothing”, “Feels” and “Easy” at Theater aan het Spui as well on the last evening of Crossing Border. Already established as one of my favourite Dutch musicians, getting to see a solo performance by Meiresonne was super cool.

So, get those tickets ready for 2020! We’re so excited for next year’s Crossing Border festival already. How about you? What did you see there? Let us know in the comments below. 

Feature image: Wouter Vellekoop/Crossing Border Festival 2019.

NS to scrap the evening rush hour discount

Kavana Desai
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NS to scrap the evening rush hour discount

Starting from 2021, everyone’s favourite Dutch Railways will be getting rid of a discount that 700,000 people depend on: the NS Voordeeluren season ticket. They will not be getting that 40% discount during the evening rush hour (4 pm to 6:30 pm). This is part of NS’s plan to have fewer people travel during those times, reports NOS. Seriously, NS?

They’re doing a massive overhaul of their season ticket system where they are cutting down the total number of subscriptions from 22 to 11. They are also looking to make the NS Flex into a standard mode of getting subscriptions. They say that they sought the advice of travellers and unions before making these decisions.

Part of cutting down on these subscriptions also includes the NS Voordeeluren subscription: it has not been sold for eight years. However, even though they stopped these sales, existing customers were still able to continue and extend their subscription. Right now, they can use this subscription to travel with a 40% discount during off-peak and evening rush hours. The only thing being scrapped out now is the discount applied during the evening rush hour.

Changes for people over 60 too

They are also changing things up for anyone who avails the “choice days” discount for people over the age of 60. Right now, they can travel at a reduced rate for seven days in a year. However, starting in 2021, they can use this subscription only outside of the off-peak hours. Obviously this is not optimum, which is why they’re opening up the validity for throughout the year.

Why is NS doing this?

As NS is grappling with the reality that more and more people want to use the trains, they are scrambling to make sure there’s enough place for everyone. They believe that with this decision, there will be fewer people during the rush hour. According to NOS, 1 in 14 evening rush hour commuters are in possession of a discount subscription. To be honest, we were expecting that number to be higher, considering how expensive the Dutch Railways can be.

What do you make of this? Let us know in the comments below!

Feature Image: Pexels/Skitterphoto

Rotterdammers are the best non-native English speakers in the world

DutchReview Crew
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Rotterdammers are the best non-native English speakers in the world

According to the EF English Proficiency Index, Rotterdam is the most adept at speaking English as a second language in, *drum roll*, the whole world! Rotterdam scores high at 71.68, Amsterdam is not too far behind at 71.35, and The Hague at 71.27. 

If you’re thinking that with these scores, the Netherlands was ranked as the best country for English where it’s not the native language, then you’re absolutely right. I mean, it does take only common sense to figure that out, but still!

What is the EF English Proficiency Index?

The results from this survey were derived from the EF SET: an online English test for reading and listening. So anyone with an internet connection was free to take the test. A total of 2.3 million people in 100 countries participated and took the online test.

But should we celebrate about these results? As they say themselves in the report, “test-taking population represented in this Index is self-selected and not guaranteed to be representative”. Therefore, the sampling bias would skew the scores depending on how many people are actually motivated to take these tests. Also, as their method of data collection is solely through an online test, it naturally excludes anyone without an internet connection, i.e., poorer people and anyone who is unable to access the internet. Not everyone in the world is online, and not everyone is online to take English tests.

How are those Rotterdammers so damn good at English?

Okay, the survey seems to be kind of designed to give the developed world a very easy pat on the back, but there’s no denying that the Dutchies are good at speaking English. Sure the Dutchies start learning English from a very young age, and they barely ever dub things into Dutch, but what makes Rotterdam so special?

The education institute believes that Rotterdammers have the Maas to thank for it. Thanks to the river that runs through the city, Rotterdam has been an important port city for centuries. It also attracts international companies that have English as their official language and boasts of universities like Erasmus University Rotterdam offering multiple programs in English.

Additionally, it seems that the province of South Holland has the best English speakers in the Netherlands, and the poorest being Drenthe.

What do you make of these results? Let us know in the comments below!

Feature Image: herry wibisono/Pixabay

Unsurprisingly rainy week ahead for the Netherlands

Ailish Lalor
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Unsurprisingly rainy week ahead for the Netherlands

Exciting times! The Netherlands will have a mostly rain-filled week, in contrast to that one time in 1990 that the sun peeked through the clouds.

Rain, rain, go away

Today you can expect a very grey sky, with a couple of clear spells. These won’t last long, however, because it’s the Netherlands (and also there’s quite a bit of humidity in the air, and not much wind to move it along). The north of the country will experience the most rain today. As we’ve already seen, there was some drizzle this morning during the rush hour, which caused delays. You can expect the same again during the evening rush today.

Tomorrow will be rainy, but when you least expect it

Wednesday will be changeable, by which we mean there will be more rain, but it will come at the worst possible moment in your day. There shouldn’t be a lot of wind, so that’s something, but there will also not be a lot of sun. Basically, it’ll be grey, and a little colder than the start of the week, with afternoon temperatures between 9 and 11 degrees. Even though this sounds very grim and dull, there are ways to enjoy the Dutch winter weather. Most of them involve staying inside, but still.

Colder weekend in store

From Thursday onwards, your hands will go numb when you bike, so remember your gloves, or prepare to hold back tears as you cycle into work. The temperature will gradually go down as the week comes to an end, with the highest possible temperature this weekend coming in at a balmy, tropical, desert-like 8 degrees. Nighttimes will hit about 2 degrees. And, uh, there’ll still be rain.

Excited about the weather ahead of you this week? Or want to chat to us in the comments below about how tragic it all is? Go ahead, let it all *pour* out. 

Feature image: Pexels/Pixabay

190 traffic jams in the Netherlands today at the peak of rush hour

Kavana Desai
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190 traffic jams in the Netherlands today at the peak of rush hour

If you’ve been stuck in a traffic jam all morning, then you’re not the only one (as you can probably make out because you’re gridlocked by vehicles all around you). At the peak of rush hour, there were at least 190 traffic jams in the Netherlands, reports NU.nl.

All of these traffic jams would total up to 870 kilometers in distance: that’s a lot of vehicles driving bumper-to-bumper in this tiny country. Well, at least you have an excuse as to why you’re late. Or you could be a friend to the environment and give public transport a shot.

Why do we have so many traffic jams in the Netherlands today?

A spokesperson from ANWB also said that we should expect hectic mornings because November is said to be a busy month.

Today’s traffic jams are said to have been caused by the rain, drizzle, and fog decreasing the visibility on the roads. In addition, because of the shorter days in winter, it is still dark when people leave their homes.

Which roads should you avoid this morning?

Take significant delays into account if you’re driving on any of the provincial roads new The Hague and Rotterdam, reports NU.nl. There are minor traffic jams around on A4, A13, A16 and the A20 of around 10 kilometers.

Avoid A4 at Hoofddrop as it has a traffic jam of at least 20 kilometers because of an accident. There was also an accident on the A15 between Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht and Sliedrecht-Wes.

So be prepared DutchReviewers! Take delays into account so that you’re never late for work. Have you been stuck in a traffic jam all morning? Let us know in the comments below!

Feature Image: Holger Schué/Pixabay 

Heineken’s Charlene de Carvalho is the richest Dutchie in the Netherlands

DutchReview Crew
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Heineken’s Charlene de Carvalho is the richest Dutchie in the Netherlands

Quote 500 has just released its annual list of the richest Dutchies in the Netherlands. Heineken’s Charlene de Carvalho remains the richest with a whooping capital of 14.2 billion euros! Gotta love [hate] your wealth hoarders. 

According to NOS, Heineken had a growing turnover and “[added] 1.5 billion euros to its assets this year”. To be on this Quote 500 list, you have to be born into wealth.

The rich are just getting richer

What a world we live in when the rich are just getting richer! According to NU.nl, there are a total of 37 billionaires in the Netherlands: a record high number for this country, and six more than last year. This year, they have even set the lower limit higher where, if you have to make it onto the list, the person needs to have 88 million euros in assets.

It was also found that the combined wealth of the 500 of the richest Dutchies has increased by at least 10% (to 179.8 billion euros) as compared to last year.

Who else made it onto the Quote 500 list?

The top three is rounded off with Frits Goldschmeding (capital of 4.4 billion euros), founder of Randstad Holding; and Gérita and Inge Wessels (combined capital of 3.6 billion euros), daughters of Dik Wessels, owners of the largest construction company in the Netherlands.

DJ Tiësto also made it on there but he is only a meagre millionaire with a capital of 160 million euros. Princess Mabel van Oranje-Nassau with capital worth 290 million euros also made it onto the list.

Quote 500 has also named the richest families to be Brenninkmeijer, owners of C&A (22.5 billion euros), Van der Vorm family of the HAL investment fund (8.5 million euros) and the De Rijcke family of Kruidvat (2.2 billion euros).

What would you even do with that much money? End poverty, maybe? Stop exploiting workers, perhaps? Invest in minimizing climate change? Just a few suggestions. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!

Feature Image: Mehran B/Pixabay 

Up in flames: Dutch church destroyed after blaze burns building, collapses spire

Samantha Dixon 🇦🇺
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Up in flames: Dutch church destroyed after blaze burns building, collapses spire

A fiery blaze has ripped through the Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-Geboortekerk (Church of Our Lady) in South Holland, causing the steeple to collapse. Houses and schools in the surrounding areas have been evacuated away from the smoke and danger.

The church, which has stood in the village of Hoogmade since 1877, reportedly began burning around 12:40 this afternoon. Around three hours after the initial blaze broke out, the spire of the church fell to the ground.

The fire brigade has had to give up on attempting to save any parts of the church, and have instead concentrated their efforts on preventing the spread of fire to neighbouring houses and buildings.

How did the Hoogmade church fire begin?

RTL Nieuws reports that the fire began after some repair work required old paint to be burned. It is unknown how the fire got out of hand so quickly and with a devastating effect.

How has the community responded?

The Hoogmade community is in shock at today’s events. One resident, who lives nearby the church, told RTL Nieuws they think the fire will be a blow to many residents. “It is a special church, especially because of its towers. They tower above the village.”

Local restaurant owner, Sandra Sierat, told NOS fire will be a major blow for the area. “It is very radical for the entire community. The church is very important for everyone, it is a Roman Catholic village.”

Residents of Hoogmade received an emergency message this afternoon from NL Alert. It advised residents to keep doors and windows closed due to the large amounts of smoke pouring out of the burning church.

Feature Image: Ronald De Jong/Twitter

Sex discrimination in the Dutch workplace is still a thing: study

Francine Zauner
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Sex discrimination in the Dutch workplace is still a thing: study

Sex discrimination in the workplace is still a regular occurrence, but who would have guessed that this would still be a problem in the progressive Netherlands? It’s 2019, after all! Keep reading to see how sexism manifests itself in the Dutch workplace.

Lacking a Y chromosome? You may be out of luck in the workplace with recent statistics showing that when looking for staff, recruiters approach women far less often than men. According to Financieele Dagblad (FD), this is the case even with staff shortages in many sectors and strain on the labour market.

Intelligence Group carried out a survey that found 43 per cent of men were approached at least once a quarter. Meanwhile, only 31 per cent of women were approached at least once in the same timeframe.

The only conclusion Robert van Veggel, director for recruitment company Steens & Partners in Zuid- and Oost-Nederland, said he could reach is that women want to work part-time more often and are therefore not as sought-after as individuals searching for full-time positions.

Women are too modest about their skill set

Researcher Geert-Jan Wassdorp does not believe in this argument because it cannot be deduced from the profiles in advance. Instead, he thinks that perhaps women are too modest about their talents whilst men tend to over-exaggerate their achievements. 

The FD carried out a study through an agency that keeps track of how often people are approached for a job (unemployed, employed and students). All work branches hired more men in general. This was the case even with healthcare, which employs a lot of female staff.

What will happen to companies that continue to discriminate?

In October, State Secretary of Social Affairs, Tamara van Ark, presented a bill to crack down on discrimination on the labour market. This will result in companies being fined if they are caught discriminating potential employees. Furthermore, the reason for the fine will be made public.

Although times are changing with employers discriminating much less than in 2015, there is still a long way to go. Moreover, individuals with a migration background still have less chance of being called to an interview.

Is joking around a clever thing to do in the workplace?

Interestingly, office banter works only in favour of men. According to Harvard Business Review, when men inject humour into a business presentation, they are viewed as individuals with a higher status within the organisation. People think that they are more capable leaders and performers.

However, this backfires on women. When they added humour to the exact same presentation, they were viewed as less capable leaders. 

So watch out ladies, men may not be able to deal with your sense of humour!

Have you faced discrimination in the workplace? Has it been due to sexism or anything else? Tell us about your experiences in the comments below!

Feature Image: Free-Photos/Pixabay

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