Flags at half mast as the Netherlands remembers the dead

[pieter]

In my city Arnhem

[pieter]

"Remembrance of the Dead" at the Waalsdorpervlakte / Walloon village plain



The Waalsdorpervlakte is an open place in the dune area "Meijendel" (The Hague, Netherlands), where between 250 and 280 members of the Dutch resistance were killed by the Germans during World War II. After the liberation of the Netherlands, Nazi collaborators were executed at the site. Anton Mussert, the leader of National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands, was executed here on 7 May 1946.

It is one of the main locations where on 4 May "Remembrance of the Dead", a yearly commemoration of victims of World War II and other victims of war, is held.

[pieter]

"Remembrance of the Dead" at the Dam Square in Amsterdam where the Royal Palace Amsterdam is located



Signaal Taptoe performed on May 4, 2018 by sergeant musician Jeroen Schippers of the Marine Band of the Royal Netherlands Navy during the National Commemoration on Dam Square in Amsterdam.

The national commemoration of Remembrance Day in the Netherlands takes place on 4 May, at 8pm. At that moment, two minutes of silence are observed throughout the country to commemorate Dutch victims of war. A remembrance ceremony is held on Dam Square in Amsterdam in the presence of the head of state and various representatives of both the Council of Ministers of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Parliament.

[pieter]

Flags at half mast as the Netherlands remembers the dead

May 4, 2023


Flags at half mast in The Hague. Photo: Philip Nijhuis ANP

The Netherlands will fall silent for two minutes at 8pm on Thursday as the country remembers the Dutch who died in World War II and in subsequent conflicts and peacekeeping missions.

Trains and cars will come to a halt and there are no take-offs and landings at Schiphol airport. Shops and supermarkets are required by law to close at 7pm, and bars and restaurants warn their clients that the music will stop for a short period of reflection. Football matches and large pop concerts are also temporarily brought to a halt.

The rule on May 4 is that flags are flown at half mast from 6am until sundown on government buildings as a token of respect but this will not be echoed around the countryside where numerous upside down flags dominate the landscape.

Since 2019 inverted tricolour flags, with the blue band at the top, have become a symbol of the farmers’ opposition to government’s plans for compulsory buyouts to reduce nitrogen pollution. Last-minute attempts by veterans and others to persuade protesting farmers to fly the flag the right side up as a sign of respect were said by radical farmers’ representatives to be ‘too much work’.


The rule on May 4 is that flags are flown at half mast from 6am until sundown on government buildings as a token of respect but this will not be echoed around the countryside where numerous upside down flags dominate the landscape.

Ceremonies will take place throughout the day at war memorials and cemeteries nationwide. The great bell of the monument in the dunes of the Waalsdorpervlakte, where some 250 people were executed, will toll just after 8pm, concluding a silent march past the four wooden crosses which were put there in 1946 by fellow resistance fighters.

The main ceremony, at the Dam war memorial in the centre of Amsterdam, attracts thousands of people. King Willem-Alexander and queen Maxima will lay a wreath at the war memorial, along with survivors of WWII, members of the armed forces and family members of those who died.

Support for Remembrance Day remains high. As a national event, May 4 is ranked higher than King’s Day and major sports occasions, according to new research carried out by the Nationaal Comité 4 en 5 mei, which organises the commemorations.

On Friday, the Netherlands celebrates its liberation with festivals and parties nationwide.


The rule on May 4 is that flags are flown at half mast from 6am until sundown on government buildings as a token of respect for the dead.

[pieter]

I will remember people like these brave Dutch resistance fighters like these members of the Resistance group Dalfsen-Ommen-Lemelerveld in the Dutch province of Overijssel (Salland region) located in the eastern part of the country. Most of these men and women died. They were killed by either Dutch Waffen SS men or the German/Austrian SD (Sicherheitsdienst).


And I will think about Jannetje Johanna (Jo) Schaft (16 September 1920 – 17 April 1945) a Dutch resistance fighter during World War II. She became known as "the girl with the red hair" (Dutch: het meisje met het rode haar, German: das Mädchen mit dem roten Haar). Her secret name in the resistance movement was "Hannie".


"A brave photo" of Truus Oversteegen, dressed as a man, and Hannie Schaft for carrying out a resistance mission. Truus Menger-Oversteegen (Schoten, 29 August 1923 – Grootebroek, 18 June 2016) was a Dutch sculptor and painter. During the Second World War she was a member of the anti-Nazi Dutch Resistance, together with her sister, Freddie Oversteegen, and Hannie Schaft.

Trailer from the Dutch movie 'The Girl with the Red hair'about the resistance fighter Hannie Schaft (Haarlem, 16 september 1920 – Bloemendaal, 17 april 1945)


The entire movie, unfortunately in the Dutch language, but the images, scenes and atmosphere tell a lot

In the beginning of the movie a Blond female resistance fighter shouts against fellow Resistance men on the Day of Liberation; "Why didn't you do anything to get her [her is Hannie Schaft, the girl with the Red hair] free (out of jail).". He female colleague made it to the liberation in contrast with Hannie. The ristance men reply in Dutch; "We did what we could"; the Female resistance fighter in an angry loud voice "What did you do!?..."; the men reply; "Child (girl) the war is over, that is the most important thing! The Netherlands is Free.!"

Law student Hannie Schaft ends up in a resistance group where she does courier work. When she is shot at during an action and a boy is shot in front of her eyes, she decides to take a harder line. Together with Hugo, now Hannie's lover, she now commits attacks on collaborators. Hugo is fatally injured in one of these attacks. The Gestapo finds her passport photo, which Hugo carried with him. From that moment on she is being hunted. Hannie disguises herself by dyeing her hair black and wearing glasses and is only obsessed with one thing: to liquidate Hugo's traitor.

Hannie Schaft was eventually arrested at a military checkpoint in Haarlem on 21 March 1945 while distributing the illegal communist newspaper de Waarheid (literally 'The Truth'), which was a cover story. She was transporting secret documentation for the Resistance. She worked closely with Anna A.C. Wijnhoff. She was brought to a prison in Amsterdam. After much interrogation, torture, and solitary confinement, Schaft was identified by the roots of her red hair by her former colleague Anna Wijnhoff.

Schaft was executed by Dutch Nazi officials on 17 April 1945. Although at the end of the war there was an agreement between the occupier and the Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten ('Dutch resistance') to stop executions, she was shot dead three weeks before the end of the war in the dunes of Overveen, near Bloemendaal. Two men known as Mattheus Schmitz and Maarten Kuiper took her to the execution site.


Hannie Schaft in 1945 in the courtyard of the Detention Center on the Amstelveenseweg (Amsterdam), shortly before her execution

I will think about the 198.800 Dutch compatriots whom died during the war amongst whom 102.000 Dutch Jewish victims of the Holocaust (Shoah), about the 88.900 civilian casualties of that war and the 7.900 military casualties of that war.


I will think about Anne Frank, her mother Edith Frank-Holländer, her sister Margot Frank and her father Otto Frank whom suffered the rest of his life due to the absense of his wife and daughters, being the only survivor of the Holocaust/Shoah in his family.


And I certainly will think about the bright, smart, spiritual and inspiring Etty Hillesum


And I will think about the thousands of Dutch mothers, children and fathers that suffered in the Japanese concentrationcamps in the Dutch East Indies.


Dutch women and children in a Japanese concentrationcamp in the former Dutch East Indies (Indonesia)

During the course of World War II, the Dutch East Indies was occupied by Japan in 1942. The internment camps were used by the Japanese occupying army to intern Dutch people and people of other nationalities who were still in the country. There were POW camps for soldiers, and camps for civilians. A complete register of camps is given in Atlas of Dutch camps. The civilian camps were subdivided into camps for men, women and children and (older) boys. Some women were forced into prostitution by Japanese soldiers; they were called comfort women.

The prisoners were generally treated badly. There was often little food available and people had to work hard. Violators of the rules often faced severe punishment or torture. In addition to these camps, there were also labor camps for Indonesians (romushas) and camps for Indo-European youth. Many men (military, conscripts and romushas, ​​supplemented by physically 'strong' civilians) were used as forced laborers on the Burma Railway, the so-called Death Railway between Nong Pladuk in Thailand and Thanbyuzayat in Myanmar (Burma), or on the Pakanbaroe Railway between Pekanbaru and Muaro in Central Sumatra. The men were also used as forced labor for the construction of airports on Flores, the Moluccas and work in mines or other industries in Japan.

Japanese camp


Dutch women have to bow for Japanese Camp Guards, because in their Asian racism these camp guards are Asian superiors. In the Asian racial hierarchy the Japanese also were higher than Chinese, Koreans, Burmese, Thai, Vietnamese, Mongolian people (from Mongolia), Indonesian, Philippinian and Malayan people. The Japanese were the allies of the Nazi's and Fascist Italy.

Jappenkamp (Japanese camp) is the Dutch name for Japanese internment camps, i.e. places where civilians or military prisoners of war were forced to stay during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies (1942-1945) by order and under the supervision of the Japanese authorities. The Dutch were regarded as 'enemy foreigners' by the Japanese occupier, as citizens of countries with which Japan was directly at war. There was harsh and cruel treatment of both civilian and prisoners of war, sometimes resulting in death. There was also a great shortage of food, water and medicines. Infectious diseases, caused in part by poor sanitation, ran rampant and killed thousands. One could even speak of passive extermination camps. Due to the large-scale and consistent deprivation of food and medicines, the inhabitants died out of their own accord. The American atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which resulted in Japan's unconditional surrender, put an end to that.

[karl]

Pieter

It is good for both the living and the Dead, for this Remembrance Day. Those that died in that terrible conflict will not be dead as long as they are remembered, and it takes such an event as above to insure their memory.

With the Farmers actions as presenting their nations flag upside-down, this is so wrong, for it has nothing to do with this event of honouring the dead. In this stead, places the farmers plight in the wrong frame of mind to those that could help them.

With the girl with The Red Hair, Hannie, Schaft, her death was very unfortunate and unnecessary due to the carelessness of her boyfriend. For the boyfriend broke a very basic rule with his activities, that never have on person any photographs or identity whilst on an operation, in this case, it was the direct cause of the death of Miss Schaft.

Karl

[pieter]

For the sake of Audi alteram partem (or audiatur et altera pars) is a Latin phrase meaning "listen to the other side", or "let the other side be heard as well" I post this critical video. It is the principle that no person should be judged without a fair hearing in which each party is given the opportunity to respond to the evidence against them.

"Audi alteram partem" is considered to be a principle of fundamental justice or equity or the principle of natural justice in most legal systems. This principle includes the rights of a party or its lawyers to confront the witnesses against them, to have a fair opportunity to challenge the evidence presented by the other party, to summon one's own witnesses and to present evidence, and to have counsel, if necessary at public expense, in order to make one's case properly.

[pieter]

The Netherlands every year is celebrating the Remembrance of the dead who fought for freedom. Salute to all who sacrificed their lives to gain peace and freedom for the present and next generation. You hear the Military officers shout 'Give Salute'(Geef Acht) and 'Present Gun' (Presenteer geweer in Dutch) which is a military excercise for a honour guard.

[pieter]

Folks,

Every year there is a discussion between Pro and Anti Remembrance of the Dead people. Some people of the younger generation have little memory or knowledge about the Second World War, nor the other wars Dutch soldiers died in (Indonesia, Korea, UN Peace keeping missions; the Dutch soldiers that died in Lebanon, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodja 🇰🇭, Mali, Afghanistan, Irak 🇮🇶 and other places).

Some leftist people find it to exclusive and to much focussed on the Dutch victims (see video Dutch fellow above here), others find it to Orange Royalist/Monarchist (Dutch Republicans in favor of a Dutch Republic and elected president in staid of a king whom is not elected).

Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

Folks I also remember the 2,300 Dutch (and probably also American, Ausrtralian and British) sailors killed at the Battle of the Java Sea.


Bombs from a Japanese aircraft falling around the Netherlands Cruiser Java during the Battle of the Java Sea. Note: Java was bombed by Japanese B5N aircraft on 15 February 1942 without sustaining damage. On 27 February during the Battle of the Java Sea, she was struck by a torpedo fired from a Japanese warship and sank 15 minutes later, just before midnight.

The Battle of the Java Sea (Indonesian: Pertempuran Laut Jawa, Japanese: スラバヤ沖海戦, romanized: Surabaya oki kaisen, lit. 'Surabaya open-sea battle') was a decisive[2] naval battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II.

Allied navies suffered a disastrous defeat at the hand of the Imperial Japanese Navy, on 27 February 1942, and in secondary actions over successive days. The American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM) Strike Force commander— Dutch Rear-Admiral Karel Doorman—was killed. The aftermath of the battle included several smaller actions around Java, including the smaller but also significant Battle of Sunda Strait. These defeats led to Japanese occupation of the entire Dutch East Indies.

[pieter]

Annick van Hardeveld 1923-1945



Annick Germaine Mathilde van Hardeveld (Amsterdam, November 9, 1923 – there, May 4, 1945) is probably the last female courier who was shot during the Second World War (1940-1945 in the Netherlands).


Annick at school in 1939. Source: Annick van Hardeveld

Van Hardeveld passed her First Aid exam in November 1943 and was trained as a Red Cross nurse. She was a medical analyst in the Wilhelmina Gasthuis and during the war she was also a courier for the resistance group Max of Michiel III, part of the Domestic Forces (de Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten in Dutch). She transported ration cards, false papers and weapons for them and sometimes brought people in hiding to a safe address.

On May 4, 1945, the 21-year-old nurse was ordered to go to Amsterdam-Noord to gather the members of the resistance group Max III in the Vossius Gymnasium. There the group had their base and a secret weapons store. The group hoped to play a role in the eventual liberation. In the night of 4 to 5 May, she left her parental home at 11 Koninginneweg in her nurse's uniform to carry out her assignment. Van Hardeveld was shot dead on the Hekelveld by members of the Grüne Polizei (Ordnungspolizei) who passed by in a raid vehicle. She was buried with military honors in Buitenveldert.



In 1981 she was posthumously awarded the Resistance Memorial Cross. Partly at the initiative of her brother Yann Emile van Hardeveld, the Monument to Annick van Hardeveld, designed by Hans Bayens, was unveiled on 4 May 1985 in her memory. It is located on the Hekelveld, at the junction of the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal and the Spuistraat. Since 1999, the bicycle courier competition Annick van Hardeveld Memorial Alleycat has been held on May 4, and bicycle couriers gather here to remember her.


Commemorative plaque commemorating Annick van Hardeveld

[pieter]

The hardest part of the Second World War was the deliberate and planned mass murder of little children. It is hard to coop with that as a human being.



Lineke de Vries is a little Jewish girl. She is imprisoned in Konzentrationslager Herzogenbusch in the South of the Netherlands (Province of North Brabant), called Kamp Vught in Dutch, with her mother. Not together, because Lineke has to go to a special children's barrack, where she is not cared for at all. She sees her mother once a week, but very briefly. Then it is decided that all children should be deported to other camps. One parent is allowed. Lineke and her mother are first taken by train to Westerbork top the North East of the Netherlands in the Province of Drente and then put on the train to extermination camp Sobibor. There they are immediately gassed upon arrival in the gas chamber of Sobibor.


Lineke de Vries with her mother in better times




Map of the Nazi extermination camp Sibibor


Many Dutch Jews died in Sobibor, Auschwitz Birkenau, Bergen Belsen, Neuengamme and Buchenwald

[pieter]