Provincial States make three and a half million available for the first phase of the renewal plans of the Kamp Westerbork Remembrance Center. The money is a supplement to the fifteen million that the cabinet shoved and make the House of Representatives available, because that money is not enough to implement the first part of the plans of the Remembrance Center.
A total of fifty million is needed for the full redesign of the camp site, the marking of the former camp railway line and the construction of a new or renewed reminder center.
With the total of 18.5 million that has now been promised by The Hague and Drenthe, Kamp Westerbork can be overhauled from next year. Work is being done on a whole new concept for the camp site, the commander’s home and the museum. The connecting road, where the railway line ran, will be arranged between the museum and the camp site as a monumental memorial.
In addition, the Remembrance Center will make the full occupation history of the camp visible. In World War II, 107,000 Jews, Sinti and Roma were deported to extermination camps. It was also twenty years the ‘temporary’ place of residence for Moluccans in Woonoord Schattenberg, as Kamp Westerbork was called after the war.
Of the provincial three and a half million, one million must come from the Pot Ophemingen Investments Large Museums and two and a half million from the General Reserve. CDA party leader Bart van Dekken is happy because his motion for the money was supported without voters. “This allows more coherence between the outside area, the museum, the former railway and the education.”
Van Dekken does not exclude the fact that the province must again pull the wallet for the second part of the plans. That is the most precious part, the new construction of the remembrance center.