From January 22, approximately eight hundred people will read out the names of more than 100,000 victims of the Holocaust on the grounds of the former Westerbork camp.
Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema, the mayors of almost all provincial capitals and state secretaries Vincent Karremans (Youth, Prevention and Sport) and Mariëlle Paul (Fundamental Education and Emancipation), among others, are participating.
The so-called Name Reading takes place from January 22 to 27 and continues day and night.
The first names are read by Eva Weyl and her granddaughter. Weyl and her Jewish parents were imprisoned in Westerbork camp for more than 2.5 years during the Second World War. According to Bertien Minco, director of the Camp Westerbork Remembrance Center, it is essential to involve the younger generation in the commemoration. “That is why I am happy that many survivors, relatives and mayors read together with young people, and that schools participate en masse.”
It is the fifth time that the names of Holocaust victims are read out at the former camp site in Hooghalen. Previous editions were known as Reading the 102,000 Names. That title has now been changed to Reading Names, because the list of names has been expanded. In addition to Jews, Sinti and Roma who were born in the Netherlands, it now also contains names of, among others, Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria and Dutch people who have been deported from Belgium or France. This brings the total number of victims on the list to approximately 104,000.
For the first time, the reading of the names is briefly interrupted to reflect on the Sabbath, the weekly Jewish day of rest that begins on Friday at sunset. A Sabbath ritual is then performed with an explanation, a spokesperson for the memorial center said. There will be another short break on Saturday afternoon, January 25, when candles will be extinguished to mark the end of the Sabbath.
On Monday, January 27, the last names will be read out by Holocaust survivor Hans Peeper. That date, on which the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp was liberated in 1945, has been declared International Holocaust Remembrance Day by the United Nations.