Last night they just wanted a drink after school, Daniëll Severien (20) from Amstelveen and his fellow students Tim (19) from Kudelstaart and Matthijs (21) from Hillegom, when they witnessed the hostage situation on Leidseplein. Daniel had not expected that they had to wait for hours with the lights out in a restaurant until the coast was clear. “You sometimes see this happening in America, but not really in the Netherlands.”
“Very crazy perhaps, but I have nothing left,” says Daniell cheerfully. He has already told his story dozens of times, but the Amstelvener also had some time for NH Nieuws. “This morning I also walked across Leidseplein again, and I didn’t feel unsafe.”
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He therefore does not have to report to the victim assistance trolley that he saw in the square. Yet he saw the hostage taker himself: “He was standing in front of the window all the time provoking with a man in his neck, kicking the door and the window a bit, yelling a bit, I think,” says Daniëll.
machine guns
That was the moment that he immediately realized that the situation is quite serious. He is still sitting at the window of Café Americain across the Apple Store and can see how many police there are in the square, covered behind trees and with specially trained dogs and machine guns.
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Daniëll films hostage taker from dark restaurant – Daniëll Severien
Not much later, he and his school friends are asked to move away from the windows and later even sit in the hotel lobby, where there were no windows on the Leidseplein side. Even the light goes out. “But I never really felt that I was afraid. I thought: there are so many police,” says Daniell.
Locked up
His school is on the Prinsengracht, just behind the Leidseplein. On a normal day, he takes the bus from the Stadhouderskade to his home in Amstelveen, or the tram from Leidseplein. But the police are now advising not to go ‘beyond the ribbons’. “But there were so many that you didn’t know where you could and couldn’t go,” says Daniëll. “And we didn’t see any buses or trams from the hotel.”
“I never really felt that I was afraid. I thought: there are so many police”
Assuming that everything is locked and they have nowhere to go, Daniel and his school friends wait in the lobby for hours. “We just went to watch videos of people who could still see something.”
Cab
In the end they manage to arrange a taxi from the Elandsgracht. Daniëll: “We were one of the last to leave. The taxi driver said that we were lucky, because you could not enter the Overtoom and Surinameplein from the highway.” He is home at half past ten.
Now, almost 24 hours later, Daniëll has to leave again to tell his story to another broadcaster. At first he thought all the media attention was funny. “But if I have been to Jinek tonight, I think it has been enough.”
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