HOLOCAUST NAME
MONUMENT
IN AMSTERDAM
“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.”
“This name monument says 102,163 times: ‘No, we will not forget you. No, we won’t accept that your name is erased. No, evil does not have the last word,’” he said. “Every one of them was somebody and today they get back their names.”
Designed by the Polish-American architect Daniël Libeskind, the memorial is located on Weesperstraat in Amsterdam.
The 1,550 square meter memorial incorporates four volumes that represent the letters in the Hebrew word לזכר meaning “In Memory of”. The volumes are arranged in a rectilinear configuration on the north-south axis of the main thoroughfare Weesperstraat and the Hoftuin pavilion to the East.
As visitors enter the memorial they encounter a labyrinth of passages articulated by two-meter-high brick walls carrying the message of Remembrance. Each of the four volumes is crafted from mirror-finished stainless steel that hovers above the walls of individually stacked bricks. 102,000 bricks will each be inscribed with a name, giving a tangible quantification to the many casualties, as well as leaving 1000 blank bricks that will memorialize the unknown victims.
The official unveiling came a year after Jacqueline van Maarsen, a friend of Anne Frank, laid the first stone, which bear the name of Dina Frankenhuis, who was murdered in the extermination camp at Sobibor.
Brick is a building material used throughout the Netherlands and western Europe. In combination with the highly reflective geometric forms of the steel letters, the brickwork connects Amsterdam's past and present. A narrow void at the point where the brick walls meet the metal forms makes it appear that the steel letters float, symbolizing the interruption in the history and culture of the Dutch people.
The Weesperstraat site is located on the eastern side of Amsterdam city centre, very close to Jonas Daniël Meijerplein, on the edge of the Plantage and Weesper districts. The history of this area is closely linked to the history of Jews in Amsterdam. Located within walking distance of the site are monuments and notable buildings that, each in its own way, illuminate some aspect of Jewish history. Before the Second World War, practically everybody who lived on Weesperstraat was Jewish.
Old photographs show a bustling, chaotic and vibrant street of homes and shops. This was the thriving heart of the old Jewish quarter. After the liberation in 1945 this once so busy and prosperous street was left deserted and neglected. The city council drew up redevelopment plans. Homes were demolished, new buildings erected, and a busy traffic artery constructed. A green verge between Nieuwe Herengracht and Nieuwe Keizersgracht remained open, however. And this is now the site earmarked by Amsterdam city council for the National Holocaust Memorial of Names, a site at the centre of the once so bustling, chaotic, thriving Jewish quarter.
Paweł Sawicki
More than 75 years after World War II, a memorial dedicated to the over 102,000 Dutch victims of the Holocaust without a grave was finally unveiled in the Netherlands. On September 19 his Majesty the King Willem-Alexander, together with Jacques Grishaver, chairman of the Dutch Auschwitz Committee, unveiled the new Holocaust Names Memorial in Amsterdam listing
102,163 victims.