Where: Plantage Middenlaan 24
1018 DE Amsterdam - Netherlands
What: Museum and memorial
Opened: 4th may 1962
Admission: free
The building: The memorial and museum is on an original site, the
Jewish Theatre. The architect of the original building was C.A. Bombach, a Dutch architect,
and a small company of operetta-actors. The building was established in 1892.
In 1992 the place was renovated to become a museum and memorial, designed by
the Dutch architect Leon Waterman.
Context: Hollandsche Schouwburg is a memorial located in the former Jewish
neighbourhood of Amsterdam. It is devoted to the 104 000 Dutch Jews that were
killed in the Second World War. Initially the place was a theatre of great
importance for the area. When the war began it was transformed in the Jewish
theatre.
It is important to notice that Amsterdam was a city
with a big Jewish community, which some people even used to call “Jerusalem of
the North”. When the time came, the Amsterdam city council, together with many
others in the Netherlands, worked to map where the Jews where and how many they
were. At first there was only segregation, the Hollandsche Schouwburg was
converted in the Jewish Theatre, and its neighbourhood in the Jewish ghetto.
Afterwards there was persecution. Between 1942 and 1943 the Nazi used it as a
prison and deportation centre, for it was in a strategic point and easy to
guard. People were send there and then to the Westerbork transit camp, in the
Netherlands, and, as final destination, to concentration camps.
After
the war people wouldn’t use the building as a theatre anymore. There were
attempts of giving other uses to it, but a group of people, specially from the
Jewish community wouldn’t want it to be forgotten what happen there. The Comité
Hollandsche Schouwburg was
founded, they rose founds and in 1950 they bought the building and donated it
to the city of Amsterdam. There where many discussions about what to do with
the building. Only in 1961 it was demolished, except for
the front façade, and converted in a memorial, as designed by the architect Leon
Waterman and inaugurated in 4th May 1962.
Exhibition: On the ground floor there is a memorial garden and a
memorial chapel, with an eternal flame. The chapel has a black Wall of
Remembrance, which has 6700 family names, in green, which represents the 104000
Jews that were killed during the WWII. The first floor consists of a
permanent exhibition about the persecution against Jews in Amsterdam between
1940 and 1945, with many personal objects, letters and pictures.
Personal impressions: The place is not big, but serves its purpose well.
The exhibition is well organized, but all the explanation is in Dutch, which
makes it complicated for outsiders to really connect and understand what is
represented. There is a paper with English explanations, but it doesn’t cover
every part of the exhibition. There is a video, on the ground floor, with
testimonials of the few ones who survived, with the option in English or in
Dutch. The video is really interesting, and revealing. The chapel is really
touching and beautiful.
One thing that really got into me was realising how
involved the Dutch government was in the holocaust, as I didn’t know they were
so involved with the Nazi. After I went to the memorial I notice in some
pamphlet that there is a Jewish touristic “route” in Amsterdam, so you can
trace their history, unfortunately I just discovery this when I was leaving
Amsterdam, and didn’t have time to visit it.
References:
DUINDAM, D., 2011. The
Hollandsche Schouwburg as a lieu de mémoire. Ph.D.-project, University of Amsterdam.
http://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/751-amsterdam-hollandsche-schouwburg-war-memorial
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| facade |
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| facade |
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| memorial chapel |
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| eternal flame |
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| family names |
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| exhibiton floor |
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| exhibition floor |
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| exhibition floor |
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| exhibition detail (map with the location of the Jews) |
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| exhibition detail |
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| exhibition floor |
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| exhibition detail |
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| back of the museum, where the theatre was (audience and stage) |
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| childrens letters |
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| back of the museum and children letters |
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| back of the museum, theatre |
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