The Dutch government allocated more than eight million euros to the ongoing establishment of a Holocaust museum in Amsterdam and a commemorative wall for victims.
The Cabinet of Prime Minister Mark Rutte last week announced the funding — one of the largest expenditures ever undertaken in the Netherlands on Holocaust commemoration of the museum and for a wall bearing the names of more than 100,000 Dutch Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
The museum opened last year thanks to a fundraising campaign led by the Jewish Cultural Quarter – a platform representing several institutions. Featuring artworks and videos, it was opened while in development with an eye to expanding its modest display into an institution on a par with some of Europe’s more established museums commemorating the genocide.
The Nazis and local collaborators are responsible for murdering 75 per cent of the Netherlands’ pre-Holocaust Jewish population of 140,000 — the highest death rate in occupied Western Europe.
