A packed cinema in Den Helder this afternoon watched the first public screening of ‘Latest they are not forgotten’, a documentary about 118 Jewish residents who did not return after the war. The film was commissioned by the Den Helder Memorial Stones Foundation and is intended, among other things, as teaching material at schools.
“With the documentary we want to give the victims a voice, show that they have lived, that they have existed,” says Peter Wijnants of the Memorial Stone Foundation.
“We also wanted to show what the impact of the war has been on relatives and how they dealt with it. And we wanted to show that anti-Semitism is tangible, noticeable, everywhere and that you have to do something about it.”
The film was made by filmmaker/photographer Peter van Aalst, who recorded the stories of relatives. For example, the documentary features sisters Shana and Halina Walter. They seek recognition for the suffering inflicted on their father as a Sinti during the Second World War. But the story is also told of Frederik van Gelder, who was born in Den Helder in April 1945, in a coal bunker as a hiding place.
Baby
“In order not to be discovered, he becomes a baby who is not allowed to cry,” says Job Cohen, who recorded the film as a voice-over with his beautiful, deep voice. Frederik van Gelder survived the war, as did his parents. His grandparents, Abraham and Frederika van Gelder, aged 54 and 51, were murdered in Auschwitz and Sobibor. Frederik eventually grew up in South Africa and became a philosopher. never let him go”
After the film, the audience walked to Koningsplein. There the new Memorial was officially consecrated. Because Den Helder had almost been wiped off the map by bombings and on German orders, the foundation was unable to place stones at all the former homes of victims. They have now been given such a monument at the Memorial.
commemorate
“The art is to continue to commemorate and to remain aware of what happened eighty years ago and that that should never happen again,” says Peter de Vrij of the Memorial Stone Foundation. “That is why it is good that we, but also the committee 4-5 May, are busy to ensure that commemoration continues to have an important place in our city. So that all children are also taken along why we commemorate.”