Remembrance of the Dead 2025

I read a quote from a great statesman last week. He expressed disgust at the trend that in this century, terrorizing civilians and murdering innocent women and children is becoming increasingly popular to bring a country to its knees. And that we allow this to happen. A chilling quote, which could have been in the paper today just like that, because it is so timely.

Today is May 4, 2025. Tomorrow is exactly 80 years ago that Canadian General Foulkes had the German General Blaskowitz come to Hotel De Wereld in Wageningen. There, in the presence of Prince Bernhard, the commander of the Internal Armed Forces, they discussed the Requirements the German surrender.

On May 5, the war was not over. It wasn't until May 8 that Germany officially signed the capitulation. But the Germans weren't finished yet, those days after May 5. They were scared and frustrated, still had their weapons and the Allies were not yet everywhere. This caused tension and sometimes deadly incidents. Also on Voorne-Putten. It was not until May 12 that the Germans, still with their weapons, left Rockanje.

The war in Europe and on Voorne-Putten had ended. But the grief and pain were still there. Many people felt anger and wanted revenge, which was quite understandable. However, Adriaan van Beveren, a member of the Internal Armed Forces in Hellevoetsluis, had trouble arresting people who had been wrong. Hellevoetsluis had 700 inhabitants at the time and he knew everyone personally. Sure there had to be punishment, but he would have preferred not to know these people personally. This honest look by a member of the Internal Armed Forces does make it clear how many shades of gray the war sometimes has. And how difficult it was sometimes for people to do something in return or to do nothing. Even after the war.

Over the past few months, we have been paying close attention to stories about the war on Voorne-Putten. And those stories make several things clear. First, that the war continues to keep us busy and fascinated. And that is good to a certain extent. It remains important that we try to learn something from history, however difficult that may be. But those stories also tell us something else. Namely, that the more personal the story becomes, the more it affects us personally ourselves.

"Les sanglots longs des violons de l'automne": Paul Verlaine's lines of poetry that ushered in D-Day for the French Resistance are legendary. Ingeniously told in the movie The Longest Day. And stories of tens of thousands of soldiers storming the beaches of Normandy during D-Day sound heroic and still make a deep impression. But a story of a very young American soldier who ends up heavily packed in the sea off Omaha Beach because his landing boat opened too early and drowned, enters much more. Because that enormous suffering suddenly has a face.

And there are those stories on Voorne-Putten, too. Similarly, the story of the three Fokker fighter planes that landed on the beach of Oostvoorne at the beginning of the war and were parked next to a beach tent to stay out of the hands of the Germans sounds almost like a boy's book. But the story of British "gunner" Allen Sindon, is quite different. After the shooting down of the bomber he was flying in, he was in hiding in the home of the Hoogvliet brothers in Rockanje. He was discovered by the Germans by chance. This resulted in the gruesome execution of father and son Hoogvliet. Losing your life because you helped someone go into hiding. It really cuts to the heart.

It is precisely those stories of people during the war, which most clearly show us how horrible the war was. Under what tremendous stress people have been under. To live. And to survive. From our armchair of freedom and democracy, it is hardly possible, and sometimes unfair, to judge individual actions during those horrible years of war. What we ourselves would have done is impossible to say. And that is precisely why I want to tell a few more extraordinary stories. Because they are stories of courage and fearlessness under sometimes almost inhuman circumstances. Always with the question in mind: what would we have done ourselves?

We just listened to the beautiful music from the movie Schindler's List by Steven Spielberg. It is a movie I watch every year and it moves me to tears every year. Especially the scene where "the list" is made touches me deeply. But the film also makes it clear that war sometimes has many shades of gray. It paints a compelling picture of Oskar Schindler as a charming swindler who ultimately saves more than a thousand Jews from death at enormous personal risk. But for Roosje Gazan and Guusje Katan of Brielle, there was no Oskar Schindler and no list.

At the end of October 1943, all 45 remaining Jews of Voorne-Putten were deported. All were murdered in concentration camps. And yet, still there was help on Voorne-Putten as well. Saul Cohen, a Jewish boy from Rotterdam, stayed in Zwartewaal as Wim van de Berg and survived the war. The same was true for Maurits Berendsen, who was given refuge in Rockanje. The Jews were not entirely alone on Voorne-Putten.

The second story is about our bells. On November 3, 1944, the ship "Op hoop van zegen" left Leerdam for Germany. On board were 226 bells from churches in South Holland. Also the bells of the St. Catharine church. These bells were to be melted down into cannons. A sinister fate for bells sometimes more than 500 years old. But through a unique sum of acts of resistance, the bells never made it to Germany. It started with skipper J. Van Dijk of Dordrecht. He refused to carry the cargo and abandoned his ship. It was then the lighthouse keeper from Urk who turned out the lights that night, which probably played a big role in the ship running aground. It was then the Hoekman brothers who, in salvaging the ship under the eye of the Germans, sabotaged things in such a way that the ship sank. And to think that these brothers had already lost a brother in the war. But because of their courage, the bells from St. Catherine's Church had been saved!

Two enormously personal stories. Stories where courage, self-sacrifice and barely imaginable suffering go hand in hand. Stories that teach us three lessons. First, that you have to be careful with your judgment. Yes, without question, much in the war was black and white, and yes, of course there was a rock-hard moral divide between right and wrong. But there was also a great gray area. An area where choosing for yourself and sacrificing yourself were sometimes close together. The second lesson makes it clear that people are capable of rising above themselves even in the most difficult circumstances and doing heroic things. And finally, the most important lesson is still that we must keep trying to learn something from our past.

And that brings me back to the quote I started with. About the use of increasingly violent terror as a tool during warfare this century. This quote, ladies and gentlemen, is as confrontational as it is topical. For "this century" does not refer to the 21st century, but to the previous century. It is from Winston Churchill from June 1935. 90 years on and we have made no progress. Reason for gloom. But gloom is of no use to us. Inspired by the courage of all these stories, we must take action ourselves.

Because there is work to be done. Work to polish, cherish, celebrate and lovingly pass on our freedom to the younger generations. So that they never end up in the miserable situation of father and son Hoogvliet. And if they ever do, they will make the same choice. The choice for freedom, courage and love. In that spirit I close with a little poem by the Jewish poet Judith Herzberg from the collection 'Stip op de horizon' with 80 poems about freedom:

Freedom

the art
like art
especially
beware
that it does not become
art

Thank you!