Opening by Jan van Zanen of the meeting marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 27 January 2025

 

Dear all,

 

More than 12,000 Jewish residents of The Hague were murdered in Nazi death camps.

Around another 63 Sinti and Roma from The Hague also died in Auschwitz.

Last week Wednesday I was at the Camp Westerbork National Memorial Centre.

I had been invited to read aloud names of Holocaust victims.

I can tell you quite honestly, it was an emotional challenge.

The list of names I was given also included people who had lived in The Hague.

Among them Salomon van Arend, his wife Leentje van Arend-Hijmans and their daughters Bernardine, Julia and Käthe.

You can see them here behind me.

The family lived in the Bezuidenhout, on Francois Valentijnstraat at number 37.

Father Salomon was a book-keeper.

Mother Leentje worked as an office clerk.

Bernardine was a sales assistant or a nanny.

Her sister Julia was also a nanny.

The youngest daughter, Käthe, was still at school.

She attended the Joodsch Lyceum, the Jewish High School.

Isolated from her non-Jewish peers.

Father Salomon taught book-keeping at that school.

That must have been why the family were able to remain in The Hague for quite a long time.

Until the day in April 1943 when all Jews in the Province of South Holland had to leave.

At half-past three on Thursday 22^nd April, an extra train carrying 624 Jewish residents of The Hague departed from Staatsspoor station, now Central Station.

The destination was the Vught concentration camp near Den Bosch.

The Van Arend family remained there for a month.

On Sunday 23^rd May 1943 they had to travel on to Westerbork.

The photo behind me was taken at Vught station on that day by a German soldier and only discovered a few years ago.

At that moment Salomon, Leentje, Bernardine, Julia and Käthe were somewhere on that platform.

For just a day they stood at the doorway to death on the Drenthe moors.

On 25^th May a goods train with almost 3,000 people aboard left Westerbork for Sobibor.

There, three days later, immediately on arrival, the Van Arend family was murdered in cold blood.

Today marks 80 years since Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau.

A name that stands for mass murder on an industrial scale.

For planned genocide.

A third of the victims deported from the Netherlands did not die in Auschwitz, but in Sobibor: more than 34,000 people.

Jules Schelvis survived Sobibor and other camps but lost his wife and in-laws in Sobibor.

After he retired he wrote the first monograph about the camp that would occupy him for the rest of this life.

For quite a while we both lived in Amstelveen, where I got to know him: a small but impressive man.

Ten years ago, in March 2015, Jules Schelvis told his story for the last time, accompanied by classical music.

Music that had been with him all his life and which had been a comfort to him (mentally) in the camps.

The place where he testified once more to those horrific experiences, meant a lot to Jules Schelvis: it was the Peace Palace which, since its opening in 1913, has been the symbol of international law.

International law that had been trampled underfoot by the Nazi regime.

International law that we must cherish and uphold.

In memory of the Holocaust victims.

And for the protection of future generations.

In that spirit, I wish you an encouraging meeting.

Welcome.