The commemoration went with dignity, the public interest was good with just under two hundred participants, but something was not right when the two minutes of silence at the Jewish monument in Hoogeveen ended tonight. Anyone who already suspected that something was not right was confirmed after a quick glance at the clock. It wasn’t even 8 pm yet.
“No, it was twenty to eight,” says Theo Osinga, somewhat embarrassed. As in previous years, the Historical Circle Hoogeveen was in charge of the organization of the Remembrance Day in Hoogeveen, with the small difference that chairman Johann Bisschop – who normally takes care of the organization – could not be present today. And so this time the organization came up with Vice-President Osinga. “Well, we were too early,” is the simple explanation.
He would have preferred that everything had gone down to the last detail. “And that was for the most part the case, because there was a beautiful commemoration,” says Osinga. He had only overlooked one detail. “Normally we go every year with the silent tour along the Jewish synagogue, only we had removed that from the program this year because we would also be laying wreaths at the Jewish monument. That was a bit of a duplicate, we thought.”
