Event in Amsterdam - project "Escalating into Holocaust"

Important date

From May through September 1943, the Germans launched raids to seize the remainings Jews in Amsterdam. 29 September 1943, on the eve of Yom Kippur, the remnant of the Amsterdam community of about 2.000 Jews were taken to Westerbork. In total 104.000 Dutch Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

Place of memory

The Dutch Theatre Museum “Hollandsche Schouwburg” – a former theatre space where the Jews were detained before being sent to the camp Westerbork and further to the death camps in Europe

EVENT III

21-22 September 2016 –  Amsterdam

Public event at NIOD: “Eskalating into Holocaust”
Expert meeting: “Developing the Concept and Content of a Holocaust Memorial – Challenges and Best Practices”
Experience exchange: Visits to important museums related to Holocaust and WWII

With participants from:

Public presentation, lectures and debate
NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam, 21 September 2016

Public event in Amsterdam

A public presentation “Escalating into Holocaust” took place on Wednesday 21 September 2016 at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam, co-hosted by NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Terraforming.

The event attracted an audience of about 50 participants – scholars, academics, PhD students, activists, professionals in the fields of Holocaust research, education, commemoration, musealisation and related fields, as well as others interested in the subject.

Programme

The event was opened by welcoming word by Dr Erik Somers from NIOD, who is also coordinator of the NIOD’s team in charge of the project “Escalating into Holocaust”.

At later point, Dr Frank van Vree, director of NIOD Institute, welcomed the participants and expressed his appreciation and satisfaction that this international event is taking place in NIOD, and that NIOD can contribute to the overall project goals as a project partner.

The programme was devided in two parts, focusing on two themes:
1. Presentation of the project “Escalating into Holocaust”, and
2. Challenges and best practices in developing the concept and content of Holocaust memorials;

The programme continued with the presentation by Misko Stanisic, creative director of the Terraforming network. Misko Stanisic presented the project “Escalating into Holocaust”, its evolvement and background, its goals, current activities, and expected outcomes and results. He pointed out the European dimension of the project, and its strive to explore shared European narratives and experiences of the Holocaust, as well as the current challenges of antisemitism and xenophobia our societies are facing today. Also, Misko Stanisic talked about the concept for the educational materials “Escalating into Holocaust” that Terraforming is developing. The materials will present 4 personal stories of young Jewish victims murdered at Sajmiste concentration camp, combining graphic-novel-style illustrations and the archive documentation of the Historical Archives of Belgrade, focusing on pre-war Jewish life in 3 cities in Serbia.

Dr Milan Koljanin, senior researcher at the Institute for Contemporary History in Belgrade, presented the historical background of the Holocaust in German-occupied Serbia and the concentration camp Judenlager Semlin (concentration camp at Sajmiste). Dr Koljanin is also a member of the Planning Committee for the future Memorial Center at Staro Sajmište. He also spoke about the current state of the Planning Committee work.

Vladimir Mijatovic, senior archivist at the Historical Archives of Belgrade presented the work on the database of the Sajmište camp victims. Vladimir Mijatovic explained the concept and informational structure of the database, the challenges and obstacles, as well as solutions the archivists developed during the process. The victim’s database is a focal point of the project “Escalating into Holocaust”. It will serve as an important contribution to the future Holocaust researches and education, as well as to the future permanent Memorial Center at Sajmiste.

Nikola Radic Lucati, artist and activist from the Center for Holocaust Research and Education, presented the exhibition “October 1941”. Together with his colleague Dr Milovan Pisarri, Nikola Radic Lucati is author of the exhibition that aim to illustrate the escalation of violence and killings in German-occupied Serbia during October 1941. This escalation resulted not only in murder of most of the Serbian Jewish male population, together with many Roma and Serbs victims, but it pushed the creation of the concentration camp at Sajmiste, where most of the remaining Jewish population was murdered until May 1942. Through archival materials and newspaper clips, 32 exhibition boards presents each day of October 1941, and mass prosecutions of the civilians. This led to the final phase of Holocaust in Serbia – systematic execution of the remaining Jewish women and children detained in the Sajmište camp, in the notorious gas van, so called “dušegupka”. In addition, the exhibition is exploring the involvement of collaborators, position of bystanders, war profiteers, propaganda, and how official media was trying to present that life was continuing “like nothing happened”.

The next part of the programme was dedicated to challenges and best practices in developing the concept and content of Holocaust memorials. Two presentations were held:

Dr Erik Somers, Historian at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies:
Musealisation of the Holocaust – Memory and Representation

Pieter Lagrou, Professor of History at the University of Brussels:
Holocaust and Remembrance – Kazerne Dossin: Memorial and Museum

More details about these presentations will be available in the final project publication, scheduled for January 2017.

During the Q&A with the audience after the official programme, Dr Milan Koljanin, Nevena Bajalica (Anne Frank House / Terraforming) and Misko Stanisic were answering and discussing questions related to the past and current challenges of antisemitism in Serbia and Europe, and in what way combating current antisemitism is incorporated into the project “Escalating into Holocaust”.

Dr Frank van Vree, director of NIOD Institute

Expert meeting: Developing the Concept and Content of a Holocaust Memorial –
Challenges and Best Practices

22. September 2016 – National Holocaust Museum / Hollandsche Schouwburg

Website:
NIOD

Website:
National Holocaust Museum / Hollandsche Schouwburg

Website:
The Dutch Resistance Museum

Website:
Anne Frank House

Website:
National Committee 4th and 5th May

Idea and Experience Exchange

During the second day of the programme in Amsterdam, with participation of guests from Serbia, Belgium, Sweden and Croatia in addition to Dutch experts, an expert meeting took place at the Dutch Theatre Museum – Hollandsche Schouwburg – a museum and a monument dedicated to the Jews of the Netherlands murdered in the Second World War .

Moderator was Misko Stanisic, from Terraforming.

Liesbeth van der Horst, director of The Dutch Resistance Museum described the process of creation of the Museum, from the first initiative by the resistance veterans in 1980’s. She also explained the financial construction behind the museum.

Annemiek Gringold spoke about the ideas and plans for the National Holocaust Museum that is currently in the making. Answering the question about the challenges of balancing the presentation of the local Holocaust history and the Holocaust in broader European frames in a Holocaust Museum, Annemiek Gringold explained that in her opinion the best way to contribute to the wider European understanding of the Holocaust is to focus on the particularities of the local aspects of the Holocaust.

Levine Rouw, International Project Coordinator at the Anne Frank House discussed how to depict the shared history of a large group through a presentation of a personal story.

Erik Somers from the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies emphasized the importance of understanding the difference between a memorial and a museum. Are we building one or the other, or a combination – a memorial museum – is a decision that need to be made in the very beginning of the process. Erik Somers also mentioned that the general interest for memorials is rising, and that museums and memorial centres today play a significant role as tourist destinations.

Pieter Lagrou from Université Libre de Bruxelles stressed the importance of making a clear distinction between the historical facts and fiction when creating exhibitions and educational materials.

Niels Weitkamp from the National Committee 4th and 5th May spoke about the significance of defining the target audience and the message one want to communicate. Is it related to commemoration, or is it educational? If educational – is it focusing on civic education and human rights, or is it more about the history of the Holocaust?

Niels Weitkamp from the National Committee for 4 and 5 May spoke about the significance of defining the target audience of a new museum/center of remembrance and the message the museum wants to communicate. Is a museum a place of commemoration, or does it have more of an educational purpose? And if education is the major focus – one needs to decide whether one wants to focus on civic education and human rights, or more on education about the history of the Holocaust?

Nevena Bajalica, Anne Frank House/Terraforming, described the current situation in the process of making a permanent Memorial Center at the site of the concentration camp Sajmiste in Belgrade.

Milan Koljanin, historian at the Institute for Contemporary History in Belgrade and member of the Planning Committee for the future Memorial Center at Staro Sajmiste, emphasized that in order to understand local Holocaust it must be seen in a broader European frames, and in order to understand broader European Holocaust it need to be looked in the wider context of the WWII. Finding the right balance between these three contexts is a challenging task, and a typical one when developing exhibitions, memorials and museums.

Nikola Radic Lucati from the Center for Holocaust Research and Education in Belgrade described the perspectives of the Serbian Jewish community and its current and past challenges regarding the process of creating a permanent Memorial Center at the site of the concentration camp Sajmiste in Belgrade.

Misko Stanisic, creative director of Terraforming network, noticed that during their current work on the educational materials “Escalating into Holocaust”, the obstacles Terraforming stumbled upon and the solutions they developed are very similar with the obstacles and solutions developed during the work on the exhibition “The Dutch Resistance Museum Junior”. Such experience exchange and sharing of the best practices is extremely important and useful.

The participants of the Expert Meeting concluded that this exchange was very interesting, inspiring and valuable.
More detailed report from the Expert Meeting will be available in the final project publication.

Participants:

Annemiek Gringold, National Holocaust Museum/Hollandsche Schouwburg, member of the IHRA Museums and Memorials Working Group (Netherlands)
Levine Rouw, International Project Coordinator at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam (Netherlands)
Nevena Bajalica, Anne Frank House Amsterdam/Terraforming, member of the IHRA Education Working Group (Netherlands)
Liesbeth van der Horst, director of the Dutch Resistance Museum (Netherlands)
Karlien Metz, head of exhibitions and collections at the Dutch Resistance Museum (Netherlands)
Niels Weitkamp, adviser at the National Committee for 4 and 5 May, and member of the IHRA Communication Working Group (Netherlands)
Pieter Lagrou, professor of history at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium)
Anne Helfrich, NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Netherlands)
Erik Somers, NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (Netherlands)
Milan Koljanin, Institute for Contemporary History in Belgrade, and member of the IHRA Academic Working Group (Serbia)
Vladimir Mijatovic, Historical Archives of Belgrade (Serbia)
Nikola Radic Lucati, Center for Holocaust Research and Education in Belgrade (Serbia)
Andreja Lekic, for the Department for Cultural Studies Faculty of Philosophy, University of Rijeka (Croatia)
Misko Stanisic, Terraforming (Sweden)

Visits to the important museums related to Holocaust and WWII

The museum in making

National Holocaust Museum

The Jewish Cultural Quarter

The Jewish Cultural Quarter of Amsterdam is a complex of several museums, memorials, Jewish historical monuments and collections, and even – a digital monument. It is placed in the old Jewish quarter of Amsterdam, and consist of the Jewish Historical Museum, Jewish Children’s Museum, the Portuguese Synagogue, the oldest functioning Jewish library in the world Portuguese-Jewish Seminary Ets Haim, the Jewish Digital Monument and Community and the Dutch Theatre Museum (Hollandsche Schouwburg) that serves as a National Holocaust Memorial. The Jewish Cultural Quarter is a run by a Foundation founded by the Jewish community.

In 1941, most Dutch Jews were living in Amsterdam. During the WWII 104.000 Dutch Jews were killed in Nazi death camps. Of the 140,000 people only 27 percent survived the occupation. Still, 7 decades since Holocaust, no official Holocaust museum or memorial was built in Amsterdam. Since 1993, the Hollandsche Schouwburg has informally filled that role.

The Dutch Theatre Museum “Hollandsche Schouwburg”

The Dutch Theatre Museum “Hollandsche Schouwburg” was once a theatre, but during the WWII it served as a deportation centre for Jews. Today, the building is a monument to the memory of those victims, a place of remembrance and an educational center. It is managed by the Jewish Historical Museum, and is a part of the Jewish Cultural Quarter of Amsterdam.

The memorial room in the Hollandsche Schouwburg provides a place where relatives and survivors can recollect and remember their loved ones. These people have no grave. On the Wall of Remembrance there are 6700 family names representing all the Jews who were deported from the Netherlands. The names stand for all the 104,000 Jews of the Netherlands who were murdered in the Second World War.

While the Dutch Theatre was used as deportation center, a day nursery across the street was annexed for the Jewish children – kept separated from their parents while their families awaited deportation. Helped by Dutch Resistance, around 600 children were smuggled out of the nursery through the backyard of the neighbouring Teacher Training College and saved from deportations to death camps.

A Dutch National Holocaust Museum in development

The former Teacher Training College building across the street from the Dutch Theatre will be used as a space for a Dutch National Holocaust Museum. This way, both buildings: the Dutch Theatre and the former Teacher Training College, will be used for this purpose. The two locations will represent two sides of the story of the Holocaust: the Dutch Theatre is a place of deportation, collaboration and remembrance of the dead, while the Teacher Training College is a place of hope, courage and selflessness.

During the developmental stage of the National Holocaust Museum, on the ground floor of the former training school exhibitions and events will focus on artistic and personal accounts of the Holocaust.

The project is being developed and will pass through two stages in the coming years. The first phase will consist of a range of exhibitions and events. The first stage will also focus on raising money for the final goal – a permanent National Holocaust Museum.

As the project is initiated and run by the Jewish Cultural Quarter and the Jewish community, the National Holocaust Museum will depict the Jewish perspectives of the Holocaust in the Netherlands. But, the target audience is wider, consisting both of the Jewish and Gentile population, the Dutch visitors and visitors from abroad, and different age groups: from survivors to school children.

Visit to the National Holocaust Museum in development by the participants of the event “Escalating into Holocaust”

Annemiek Gringold welcomed the group at the space of a future National Holocaust Museum in the Teacher Training College, and guided through the Dutch Theatre Museum “Hollandsche Schouwburg”.

The guests could see the current exhibitions at the National Holocaust Museum – a series of paintings by Jeroen Krabbé, entitled “The Demise of Abraham Reiss”, and the digital Jewish Monument – an online archive that aim to commemorate Jewish victims of the Holocaust by bringing them out of anonymity and gathering information about their lives. Annemiek Gringold explained the historical background and symbolic significance of both spaces, as well as the current and future plans for the Dutch National Holocaust Museum.

This was a very interesting and valuable visit, particularly inspirational for the members of the team currently working on the plans for the future permanent Memorial Center at Sajmiste in Belgrade.

For children – from childrens’ perspectives

The Dutch Resistance Museum “Junior”

A group of participants of the event “Escalating into Holocaust” was welcomed at The Dutch Resistance Museum by Liesbeth van der Horst, the Museum director. The exhibition “The Dutch Resistance Museum Junior” and its educational concept was presented to the group by Karlien Metz, head of exhibitions and collections.

The “Junior” pedagogical concept is based on presentation of four typical perspectives of the WWII in the Netherlands – through the eyes of children. Finding the eye witnesses and their stories wasn’t an easy task. There were several elements that needed to match perfectly. It had to be 4 different perspectives: bystander, victim, perpetrator and helper. It had to be two girls and two boys. It had to be children that survived and are still alive, and willing to participate. After several years of intense research, four suitable and representative personal stories were chosen as a base for the exhibition.

as children during the WWII – and today…

see the video

ADJUSTMENT/EVERY-DAY LIFE: Henk is a boy with no particular standing on the war. He think that the war is exciting, but he is also scared.

PERSECUTION: Eva is a Jewish girl. She experiences anti-Jewish measures, persecution, hiding, deportation and survives a concentration camp.

RESISTANCE: Jan is a son of a resistance fighter. He had to go to hiding in order to escape the Nazis.

COLLABORATION: Nelly is a daughter of a prominent Nazi collaborator, and activist in the pro-Nazi youth movement. She experiences humiliation and shame after the war as her family is considered traitors.

The Resistance Museum Junior centres on the stories of four eye witnesses: Eva, Henk, Jan and Nelly. They were between 9 and 14 years old during the war, the same age group as the target audience of the children’s museum. The four children are the storytellers in the four main themes: persecution, resistance, collaboration and everyday life/adjustments. The exhibition explores the life of children during the occupation, their experiences, choices, problems and dilemmas they faced due to a lack of freedom, persecution and shortages. The texts and audio are available in Dutch and English so international visitors also can follow the entire exhibition.

Exploring the children’s perspectives during the WWII

The entrance to the exhibition is a “time machine”. An animated movie takes us back to the Netherlands at the beginning of the occupation. Exiting the time machine, the visitors are entering the exhibition space: a square “somewhere in the occupied Netherlands”, surrounded by 4 houses. These are the houses of our main characters Eva, Henk, Jan and Nelly. We can enter and explore the houses, where most of the objects are actually part of an interactive interface that trigger a rich multimedia content. One can make different choices regarding what to do and how to follow the stories. This way the visitors feel like they actually “participate” the events, and follow the main characters through their dilemmas, fears and experiences during and after the war.

Testimonies from around the world

Another part of the exhibition is devoted to personal stories from other parts of the world. There is a “crashed plane” in a corner of the exhibition space, that can be used to “fly to other countries”. This way the visitors can hear testimonies from other children, notably from former Dutch colonies, but also from Russia, Ukraine, Great Britain, Germany and other places.

Connecting the past with the present

Very exciting, if not the most important moment, is a meeting with the actual eye witnesses – the characters of the 4 stories: Eva, Henk, Jan and Nelly. They are still alive, all living in the Netherlands. On the video screens, Eva, Henk, Jan and Nelly are sharing their views on tolerance, democracy and social cohesion in today’s society, based on their life experiences as children in the war time. This “grand finale” of the exhibition when we meet the main characters as real people in present time emphasizes the authenticity of the entire exhibition and enhances the credibility of the lessons we learned, leaving a deep impression on visitors.

Useful inputs for the educational materials “Escalating into Holocaust”

As Karlien Metz, head of exhibitions and collections at the Dutch Resistance Museum, explained to the group, the exhibition is aimed at children from the age of nine.

For the group of participant of the Amsterdam event, the entire visit to the Dutch Resistance Museum was an interesting and valuable experience exchange, particularly as the educational materials for the “Escalating into Holocaust” also focuses on 4 stories about young people during the WWII.

Simplifying the story but preserving and presenting the historical facts; Using altered pictures and graphical elements but maintaining the authenticity of documentary materials; Including fictional elements but asserting the overall credibility as historically accurate and trustworthy – these are some of the common challenges when developing educational concepts for teaching and learning about the Holocaust and WWII.

The visit to the Dutch Resistance Museum was an important experience that will contribute to the final results of the project “Escalating into Holocaust”, particularly regarding the development of the educational materials.

The Anne Frank House

Symbol of hope and betrayal, and a role model for youth around the world

The Anne Frank House is one of the most famous and most popular museums in Amsterdam.

The house at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam is where she lived in hiding with her family for more than two years during WWII. Her story is well known: forced in hiding in order to escape deportation and death, Anne kept writing her diary. Her writing was funny, heartbreaking, inspiring, filled with hope, wonder, imagination and all these small “insignificant” things a 13-years old girl could have been writing about. The diary stops abruptly in August 1944, when her family are betrayed and eventually sent to Auschwitz death camp. Only Annes father Otto Frank survived.

The Diary of a Young Girl was published and became a bestseller worldwide, and Anne Frank became one of the most iconic symbols of the suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust.

Otto Frank was the driving force behind the publication of his daughter’s diary, and was closely involved in the activities of the Anne Frank House until his death. Two key aims in this were to preserve the secret annexe and open it to the public, and to spread the message of Anne Frank’s life and ideals worldwide: education as the key to a better world.

An initiative by a group of citizens: save the building

After the war the secret annex was seriously threatened. The building supposed to be demolished. A group of people from Amsterdam set up a foundation and campaigned to save the house. They succeeded to preserve the building, now known as the Anne Frank House.

Otto Frank wanted the Anne Frank House to become a meeting place for young people, focused on the future. He was a member of the management board of the Anne Frank House, and remained closely involved with the Anne Frank House until his death in 1980.

The task that Anne entrusted to me continually gives me new strength to strive for reconciliation and for human rights all over the world.
(Otto Frank)

A museum and an educational center

Today, Anne Frank House is a museum and an educational center. Since 1963 more than 26.000.000 people from all around the world have visited the museum.

Experts of the Anne Frank House develop and implement teaching materials and methodologies about Holocaust and antisemitism, but also about many other important topics such as human rights, racism and extremism, intolerance and discrimination, antiziganism and other forms of xenophobia. Their target groups vary from students and young people, to teachers and educators, police officers, decision makers and many others. Also, the Anne Frank House is active in more than fifty countries with exhibitions and educational programs, among others in Serbia.

3D virtual tour through the secret annex

Reflections and conclusions after the event in Amsterdam

As a final part of the two-days programme, a group of participants of the event “Escalating into Holocaust” visited the Anne Frank House.

After the tour in the museum, they met with Jan Erik Dubbelman, International Director at Anne Frank House.

The idea was to use this opportunity to wrap-up and give space to the participants to reflect on the whole programme in Amsterdam through a dialogue with Jan Erik Dubbelman.

The participants shared their thoughts and conclusions, defining the most important and valuable experiences and results they are “taking back home” after the event:

A fresh overview on the ways the Holocaust is remembered, commemorated and taught about in the Netherlands;

Better understanding of the current and past practices and the development processes behind creating museums and memorials in the Netherlands;

Valuable new contacts;
– were mentioned by the participants as the most important results of the event.

Our host: NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies
An archive, independent academic research centre and a historical monument

During the first day of the event, a guided tour through the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies was organized for the participants.

The participants of the programme had the opportunity to see the archives and collections about the WWII, the NIOD library, offices and other spaces of the building, including some of the rooms that are still partly preserved in their previous state.

The Institute was founded on 8 May 1945 to write the history of the Second World War in the Netherlands and in the former Dutch East Indies through independent research. Since 1 January 1999 the Institute is part of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). In 2010 NIOD merged with the Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (CHGS) and it now operates under the name NIOD, Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

The building

After the fire damaged neighbouring building, in 1883 a rich tobacco trader built a new house in the French Renaissance style.

In 1921 the Deutsche Bank bought the building. During the WWII, the building was used by the Nazi occupying power. After the war, the building was confiscated and as a part of a Reparations Agreement it become a property of the Dutch state.

Area of work & tasks

NIOD’s area of work covers the 20th and 21st century, with a focus on research into the effects of wars, the Holocaust and other genocides on individuals and society.

The main tasks of the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies are:

to collect, manage, open up and make accessible WWII archives and collections;
to conduct academic research and publishes about it;
to give information to government bodies and individuals;
to stimulate and organises debates and activities about war violence and processes that are at the basis of war violence;