The sea of flowers on the spot where Lisa (17) was murdered in Duivendrecht is still growing. In addition to flowers, there are also dozens of hugs, cards, candles and other things. It has become a place of collective mourning, as we saw in the city before, for example, the murders of Theo van Gogh and Peter R. Vries. But such a sea of flowers cannot remain forever.
“You were the biggest, we won’t forget you. Thank you for all the beautiful moments. Rest in peace. Pl ‘. Ron Blom – Accrease at the Amsterdam City Archives – has a plasticized A4 in hand with the above text. Layed by someone for the parental home of Johan Cruijff in Betondorp, just after his death in 2016. And so there are boxes full in the City Archives.
Not only with tickets for Johan Cruijff or for his relatives, but also for Theo van Gogh, Eberhard van der Laan and Peter R. de Vries. Because where flower seas disappear, many expressions of mourning are kept. Blom: “Because it says something about how people deal with mourning. Public mourning, collective mourning. It is all about important moments in recent Amsterdam history. Where it is important to be able to keep a few things kept for posterity.”
Blom puts a box full of cuddly bears. Most of them are a card.
‘Peter, you were big, you are big, you stay big, always. Rest in peace, love ‘.
“In the case of Peter R. de Vries, the material that lay on the Lange Leidsedwarsstraat – the place where he was shot – has been there for a while,” says Blom. “At a certain point in a small police officer, that is stored nearby. In all cases, you naturally try to find a good destination with the relatives and all others, to make good agreements or make good decisions. In the case of Peter there was contact through the police with the family, and in this way we could do it all in good consultation.”
Defining flowers, they cannot be stored. Blom: “But there are pictures of that, so in that sense it is saved. In the case of Peter R. de Vries, a lot of currant buns were also laid down, his beloved delicacy. You can’t keep currant buns. In the case of Van Gogh there are also cigarette butts.
There are not really agreements about how long a sea of flowers may remain. Sometimes the municipality decides that a mourning place will be emptied, sometimes the decision is up to the family. There is also no protocol for storing the various mourning expressions. Everything is in consultation, each case is different.
Lisa
Now there is again a huge sea of flowers in the city. Not for a well -known filmmaker, footballer or crime journalist, but for a young woman who came across the wrong after an evening. It is not yet known what will happen with all the expressions of mourning and support left in Duivendrecht.
BLOM: “When asked whether we only collect material from important Dutch people or Amsterdammers, the answer should be ‘no’. It is about to what extent it is an expression of a general social feeling, something that society is instructed. I think it is very clear in this case. So in that sense it could certainly be worth seeing about it. To keep the memory of this terrible crime for future generations. “