A commemoration took place in Amsterdam, paying tribute to the over 33,000 Dutch Jews murdered in Sobibor.
The ceremony took place at the city’s Vondelpark, where a new memorial was placed last year.
The horrors of the Nazi extermination camp of Sobibor became known in the Netherlands mainly through the testimony of Jules Schelvis, one of only nineteen Dutch survivors. In the early 1980s he began to write about his experiences and in 1999 he founded the Sobibor Foundation. Schelvis passed away in 2016.
The monument at the Vondelpark consists of a plaque and a mirror. The initiator of the monument, Niels van Deuren wants people to ask themselves whether they can still look themselves straight in the eye, and what they do when they detect racism, discrimination or intolerance.
The monument was inspired by King Willem-Alexander’s speech during the National Commemoration on Dam Square, May 4, 2020. In it, the king in turn referred to a meeting he had with Schelvis and what he took away from it: “Sobibor began in the Vondelpark. With a sign: ‘Prohibited for Jews’.”
The current president of the Sobibor Foundation, Christine Gispen-de Wied, also cited the words of Willem-Alexander at the ceremony. She also outlined the course of events in the camp: “In Sobibor more than 33,000 Jews from the Netherlands were gassed in five months. Imagine that. That is a death machine. From Sobibor you don’t come back.” Gispen also makes the link to the present: “With the war in Ukraine and refugees all over the world, we still have a long way to go for a better future.”
Former Speaker of the Dutch House of Representatives, Khadija Arib recalled during the commemoration that she met Schelvis twice: “A small fragile man who radiates such strength. That particularly touched and inspired me.”
