Memorial Center Camp Westerbork is collecting 1.5 million buttons for a work of art, one button for every child who did not survive the Holocaust. The artwork will be part of an exhibition curated by guest curator Jeroen Krabbé.
The starting signal for the collection was given today, on Holocaust Memorial Day, at De Nieuwe Veste secondary school in Hardenberg. Students have already started the collection.
Krabbé took a look at the school, together with students he delved into the history of children and young people who were murdered in the Second World War in camps such as Auschwitz, Sobibor and Mauthausen.
Artist Jeroen Krabbé is one of eight guest curators who contribute to the theme year The Memory of Camp Westerbork. Krabbe was born in World War II (1944), more than eighty of his relatives were killed. His grandfather Abraham Reiss was gassed in Sobibor in 1943. Krabbé made nine paintings about his grandfather, he also made two films in which the Holocaust plays a role.
His paintings, film fragments and works from his private collection are part of the guest exhibition, as is the Button Monument. For that artwork, Krabbé was inspired by the Bialik Buttons Project of the Melbourne Holocaust Museum in Australia. There, 1.5 million knots were also collected with the help of students.
People who want to contribute to the project can send or bring buttons to De Nieuwe Veste in Hardenberg. There the knots are stored and counted. The artwork will be on display in the museum from July.