The Netherlands will remember its war dead in silence on May

[pieter]

May 4, 2021

The Netherlands will remember its war dead in silence on May 4



The Dutch will remember those who died in World War II with two minutes silence on Tuesday evening, but like last year, the commemorations will be modest and without crowds.

At 19.58 a trumpet will play the Last Post on an empty Dam Square and at 20.00 the country will go silent for two minutes to remember the dead.

Trains and cars will come to a halt and there are no take-offs and landings at Schiphol airport during two minutes’ silence, which takes place at 8pm. Shops and supermarkets are required by law to close at 7pm.

King Willem-Alexander and queen Maxima will lay a wreath at the memorial on Dam square in the presence of prime minister Mark Rutte and Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema.

After the wreath laying, spoken word artist Amara van der Elst will read a piece and comedian and singer André van Duin, who grew up amid the bombed ruins of Rotterdam, will make a short address.

This year, organisers Comite 4 en 5 Mei are urging people to buy flowers and place them at a war memorial in their neighbourhood. People can also place a virtual flower at one of the 4,000 memorials nationwide via the website.

Eight in 10 people in the Netherlands believe that we can still learn from the events of World War II, according to the committee’s annual survey, and 9% think it time to let the war rest.

Among youngsters, however, just one in three see WWII as part of their history but this rises to 42% among the population in general.

Nevertheless, almost eight in 10 people say they plan to watch the ceremony on television and 85% say they consider Remembrance Day to be important or very important.

Liberation

May 5, on which the Netherlands celebrates its freedom, will also be very different, with no festivals nationwide. However, the freedom flame will be lit in Wageningen as usual and there will be ceremonial flames in all 12 Dutch provinces.

This year’s May 5 lecture will be given by German chancellor Angela Merkel from Berlin. The speech will be broadcast live on NPO television.

In the evening, instead of the traditional floating concert on the Amstel river, there will be a more low key event in the foyer of the Carré theatre which will be broadcast live on NPO1.

[pieter]

The men in the blue Boilersuits and the Dutch military helmets represent the Domestic Armed Forces (BS; officially: Dutch Domestic Armed Forces; Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten) formed an official grouping of the hitherto little cooperating actual resistance groups in the Netherlands, which was officially set up on 5 September 1944. The Domestic Armed Forces therefore arose from the three main resistance groups: the Order Service (OD), the Landelijke Knokploegen (LKP) and the Council of Resistance (RVV).






The Dutch prince Berhard (of German origin) was a hero of the Dutch resistance. Here he inspects Dutch members of the Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten (Domestic Armed Forces) of the Dutch Resistance in the North Holland Province town Alkmaar in 1945.

[pieter]

Until 1944, the resistance groups, insofar as they already had contact, worked independently under the supervision of the Government's Special Missions Office in London. When they were merged into the BS, Prince Bernhard was appointed commander of the BS, although he resided in London. Colonel Henri Koot, who was in Amsterdam, became commander of the BS in the occupied Netherlands.


Henri Koot (Singaradja, December 29, 1883 - The Hague, January 18, 1959) was a Dutch expert in the field of cryptography and cryptology. During the Second World War he was Commander of the Interior Armed Forces.


Queen Juliana and General Henri Koot on 22. December 1956 in Amsterdam

In the very beginning of the organization there were less than 10,000 BS'ers. The BS was also very poorly armed. This was later improved by Allied weapon drops.

The Domestic Armed Forces (BS) were officially called the Dutch Domestic Armed Forces, abbreviated NBS. Usually it was said to be 'BS'. The annoying thing about the abbreviation NBS was that it rather resembled the abbreviation of the National Socialist Movement NSB.

The BS was founded on the model of the French Forces françaises de l'intérieur. Queen Wilhelmina was a strong supporter of this. The BS was divided into Shock Troops and Guard Troops. In the still occupied part of the Netherlands, the Stoottroepen were referred to as 'Strijdd Geddeel (SG) der BS'. The men of the Stoottroepen had to come from the armed resistance. The Guard Troops were 'formed from those who made themselves available to maintain or restore order and peace on the day of liberation and afterwards'. They would not take to the streets until the liberation. So for now they were little more than paper members.

The BS was partly founded to keep the armed resistance movement manageable, especially now that it would be supplied with weapons on a large scale. The BS was bound by all kinds of rules. For example, one could only emerge as an army, as BS, when the commander (Prince Bernhard) gave the signal to do so. The bundling of the three armed groups did not imply that these groups immediately merged into the new organization. The differences between them were too great for that.

The BS wore blue overalls as a uniform.

Neither the Germans nor the Allies thought highly of the BS. The BS expected that they would "rub shoulders" with the Allies "to ruin". However, the Allies concluded an armistice with the Germans in the western Netherlands on 4 May 1945, on the condition that only the Allies would disarm the Germans, and not the BS. This made the BS superfluous. The Allies forbade the BS to show themselves armed on the street because they were afraid that chaos would break out and BS'ers would lynch Germans. The BS did not abide by this ban, which, according to researchers, has led to shootings such as the one on 7 May on Dam Square in Amsterdam.

[pieter]

Waalsdorpervlakte



The Waalsdorpervlakte is an open place in the dune area "Meijendel" (The Hague, the Netherlands), where between 250 and 280 members of the Dutch resistance were killed by the Germans during World War II. It is also the site were the top Nazi collaborators were executed.

Following the liberation of the Netherlands, 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]

And after the remembrance of the dead on May the 4th we have liberation day, when we commemorate that we were liberated by the Western allies; The Americans, the Canadians, the British and Polish forces and also some Dutch, Belgian, Australian, New Zealandic and French allied forces.

[pieter]

And with the liberation came the revenge and 'The day of reckoning is coming'. Traitors, Dutch Nazi party NSB members, Dutch girlfriends and wives of German and Austrian members of the occupying forces (Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine, Luftwaffe, Waffen-SS, civilian German/Austrian NSDAP personel in the Netherlands), Dutch Gestapo/SD members, well know collaborators and manhunters were the targets of raging mobs, various resistance groups and streat roaming youths.



Round up of Dutch nazi's





Arrested NSB-Members and shaved Moffenmeiden (Kraut girls) on 11. April 1945 in the Netherlands

[pieter]

Canadians liberate Rotterdam. German soldiers leave Rotterdam. The Rotterdam population parties.

[karl]

Pieter

It is good to hold one day of remembrance of the war dead. For these men and women will never grow old, for they did not give their lives but their lives were taken from them in the act of war. They died in the service to their country and as so should be remembered for their service.

Karl