The old army vehicles would only be available to a limited extent in September. Gerrit Boer archive
Not corona, but the war in Ukraine throws a spanner in the works at the celebration of 75 years of freedom in Westerbork. The party week that would take place from 4 to 10 April has now been canceled for the fourth time.
The decision follows the cancellation of last Thursday’s Drenthe Liberty Tour by the Northern Netherlands working group of Keep Them Rolling (KTR). The liberation of the Netherlands in 1945 would be commemorated and celebrated with a column of more than 200 military vehicles.
The organization decided to cancel the Drenthe Liberty Tour 2022 when the local committee in Westerbork, the place where the large bivouac would take place, pulled the plug on the ‘Village of Peace’ event. Earlier, other local organizations and participants had already expressed their concerns.
Now the celebration of 75 years of freedom is off the track. ‘War and the celebration of freedom are so at odds with each other that they are incompatible,’ says Albert Kuper on behalf of the board of the Westerbork Village of Freedom Foundation.
The program was scheduled to run in conjunction with Keep Them Rolling in early April. ‘But celebrating a freedom festival, while elsewhere in Europe a country and its inhabitants are in misery and die because of a war, do not go together.’
The board will soon consider whether the party can take place at a later date.