Ten thousand pairs of shoes were placed on Dam Square this afternoon to commemorate the deceased Palestinian children. Their names were also nominated by well-known and unknown Dutch people.
An impressive sight this afternoon on Dam Square. There, volunteers spent hours putting down thousands of children’s shoes. They symbolize the Palestinian children who died. The Plant an Olive Tree Foundation, which is behind the action, calls on people not to forget these children and to do everything they can to stop the violence forever.
“There are far too many children in 99 days and it has to stop. This is also a moment for us to mourn and reflect on it. But we must also keep going so that this stops forever,” says Esther van der Most, director of the foundation. She herself lost her mother-in-law, sister-in-law and niece in the bombings in Gaza.
Emotional
The action attracts a lot of attention and evokes many emotions among passers-by. “I stand here with enormous sadness for the innocent victims. For all those children. I stand here full of powerlessness and also somewhat desperate.” Another: “It’s a lot of shoes, really intense. Yes, it affects me.”
Names
Well-known and unknown Dutch people also read out the names of the children who died when placing the shoes. This also applies to actor Abbie Chalgoum: “They are children. Children who had a future, but that future no longer exists. The message today is that the war must stop and that we must think of the children. We must do this together. , with all Dutch, Israelis, Palestinians. Every person counts, every life counts.”
It is the second time that this memorial protest has taken place; in December there were already 8,000 shoes on the Binnenrotte in Rotterdam.