Liberation Day, the day on which the Netherlands celebrates the liberation from the German occupation, has officially started. In Oss, Lieutenant Colonel Gijs Tuinman gave the 5 May lecture. Tuinman, who was deployed to Afghanistan five times, explored the concept of freedom from his international experiences.
Tuiman quoted a conversation with a Libyan colleague who said that for him freedom equals “waking up every morning with a smile on your face”. “Freedom is not an organization or administrative culture, freedom is a feeling,” Tuinman concluded. The 13-year-old Liam Spikmans then gave the children’s lecture. He thinks it is “cool” that we live in a country where there is a lot to choose from. “You would almost get stress of choice and that is an extremely luxury problem.”
Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) will light the liberation fire at 13.30 in Den Bosch, which 96-year-old British veteran Harry Rawlings lit at midnight in Wageningen. In the city where the German occupiers capitulated on 5 May 1945, 1,500 relay runners left for eighty other cities in the Netherlands to pass on the fire. This year, for the first time, the fire is also crossed as a ‘freiheitsfeuer’ across the border brought to Germany†
Read also the 4 May lecture by Hans Goodkoop
Reflecting on Ukraine
Just like the Remembrance Day on Wednesday, Liberation Day will be celebrated again for the first time in two years without corona measures. Throughout the country, a total of fourteen liberation festivals Place. This year, the festival organizations also pay attention to the victims of the war in Ukraine. The Ukrainian ambassador to the Netherlands, for example, gives a speech at the liberation festival in The Hague and 16.55 (five to five), the traditional moment when people commemorate freedom, is dominated by the situation in Ukraine.
The . will start at 8.55 pm on the Amstel in Amsterdam May 5 concert the traditional closing of Liberation Day takes place. Fresku, Eric Corton and Merijn van Haren and the symphony orchestra Philamonie zuidnederland will perform, among others. King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima will attend the concert in the capital. The theme of the May 5 concert is ‘I look at you’, a reference to the importance of personal contact in a volatile time.