Humanity in Action The Netherlands Commemorates 75 Years of Freedom

Publish Date:04 May 2020

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Diversity , Remembrance , Holocaust , Roma , History , LGBTQIA+ , Colonialism

Article

On the 4th of May the Netherlands commemorates the victims of the Second World War and on the 5th of May we celebrate the liberation of the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands from the German occupation. This year the ‘Nationale Herdenking’ (National Commemoration Day) and ‘Bevrijdingsdag’ (Liberation Day) celebrate their 75th anniversary. Throughout the country organizations and volunteers have worked hard to commemorate this jubilee edition.

The past few months we have, together with the 2019 Fellows Lecyca Curiel and Lisa Nussy, been working on the necessary preparations to organize one of the many ‘Vrijheidsmaaltijden’ (Freedom Dinners) in Amsterdam. Because of the measures against the spread of the coronavirus, the ‘Nationale Herdenking’ and ‘Bevrijdingsdag’ will take place in a different way than we are used to and had hoped for.

In spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lecyca and Lisa want to commemorate and celebrate 75 years of Freedom for their Action Project together with our network. They submitted the question “Who or what do you commemorate on May 4th” to the 2019 Fellows and these were their answers:

Loïc Michels: “All those who, like my grandparents, because of war couldn’t become who they could have been.”

Humanity in Action the Netherlands underlines the importance of inclusive and future-oriented remembrance; sharing stories of those who are often left out of the history books. This way we can learn from each other and increase solidarity within society.

We hope that next year’s ‘Vrijheidsmaaltijd’ will give us the opportunity to jointly commemorate all victims of the Second World War and share new and unexplained stories.

We wish everyone a thoughtful ‘Nationale Herdenking’ and a beautiful ‘Bevrijdingsdag’.

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