Riots In Amsterdam As King and Israeli President Open Holocaust Museum
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
AMSTERDAM (Worthy News) – Dutch riot police clashed with protesters opposing Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s presence at the opening ceremony of the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam, which the Netherlands’ King Willem-Alexander inaugurated.
With anti-Israel protesters fighting and booing in the background, the king recalled the dangers of antisemitism at a ceremony in the nearby Portuguese Synagogue where, besides Israel’s president, outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was in the audience.
“The museum gives victims a face and a voice. It shows how antisemitism can have devastating consequences,” King Willem-Alexander said in the synagogue. “Toxic words and actions can turn into deadly dynamics. It is up to all of us to prevent antisemitism from becoming a hurricane that destroys everything.”
Outside, fighting erupted as pro-Palestine protesters tried to cross the barriers near the Portuguese Synagogue. Demonstrators carried Palestinian flags and signs with slogans such as “Amsterdam is saying no to genocide” and “Ceasefire now.”
It was a reference to Israel’s war in Gaza
sparked by the Hamas group’s massacre of some 1,200 people in Israel, including raped women and children. An alliance of 200 mosques and other groups had previously demanded that King Willem-Alexander would stay away from the ceremony with the president of Israel, the Jewish nation founded on the ashes of the Holocaust, or Shoah.
Jewish Holocaust survivors were in shock when many of the thousands of anti-Israel protesters were also heard when the king opened the National Holocaust Museum, along with Israel’s president and other dignitaries.
Critics viewed the protests as deeply anti-Semitic as two-thirds of Dutch Jews were killed in the Holocaust, more than any other European country. A crowd carrying Israeli flags was kept away by police from the more noisy pro-Palestine demonstrators.
MOST DUTCH JEWS KILLED
Some 102,000 Dutch Jews were among the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. “The protest deeply hurts my feelings,” said Phia Baruch, a royally decorated Dutch Jewish journalist and author who survived the Holocaust.
Her mother, Evelina Baruch-Frank, was deported to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in occupied Poland, where she was killed.
Phia Baruch’s father was taken to another camp and later returned, physically and mentally wounded.
“I survived with my sister when a church helped us to escape to the Dutch island of Ameland,” she told Worthy News. “Ironically, I later finished my studies at the former teacher training school, which is now the National Holocaust Museum.”
The Museum is also located opposite the Hollandsche Schouwburg, a former theater and now a Jewish memorial site, from where her mother and many other Jews were deported to Nazi death camps in 1942 and 1943.
“To see people shouting against Israel on the day that a National Holocaust Museum is opened makes me realize that we live in such a tough world,” Baruch said, her voice trembling with emotion.
“These protesters are short-sighted. They think that the Jews want to kill the people in Gaza. But the Jews feel like they have a gun pointed at them again. What do you do then?” she added.
PEOPLE LOSING THEIR MIND
“I think that’s such a shame that these people are stoked to hate. I know some people do not lose their mind, but it’s a very frightening development,” Baruch stressed.
The museum in Amsterdam now tells the stories of some of the 102,000 Jews, like her mother, who were deported from the Netherlands and murdered in Nazi death camps. It also explains the history of their structural persecution under German World War Two occupation before the deportations began.
However, protesters said they did not regret visiting the National Holocaust Museum area to interrupt a ceremony dealing with one of humanity’s darkest chapters.
Instead, riot police had to intervene when demonstrators climbed onto police vans that were placed near the museum and the synagogue.
With tensions ongoing outside, Israeli President Herzog also gave a speech in which he called for prayers and the release of the Israelis who have been held hostage by Hamas since October 7.
Speaking in the Portuguese Synagogue, Herzog said the National Holocaust Museum was a reminder of “the horrors that arise from antisemitism.”
He added that “Hate and antisemitism are flourishing worldwide right now,” despite previous calls to “never forget” the Shoah.
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