Camp Westerbork Memorial Center is concerned about the increase in polarization and anti-Semitism in the Netherlands. According to the center, connecting with each other is very important now, which is why visitors could enter for free today for lectures and activities.
Director Bertien Minco of the Remembrance Center has seen a huge revival of anti-Semitism, but also of Islamophobia and racism, since the war in Israel and Gaza. According to her, it is precisely in Westerbork that you can learn more about what can happen if you do nothing about it.
“If there is one story being told here, it is what polarization can lead to in the worst case scenario,” says Minco. “The persecution of the Jews is a low point in human history and what you can learn here is that it did not start with the gassings.”
The director sees several parallels between the run-up to the Second World War and the times we live in now. “That started with decades of conspiracy theories, hate speech and fake news. With all the things you see now. That incites people and gives people ideas that other people are bad.”
One of the speakers today is the Jewish Micha Gelber, who was imprisoned in Camp Westerbork as a child and survived the war. According to him, anti-Semitism has never completely disappeared from the Netherlands. “Anti-Semitism is always simmering. At the moment you still cannot safely wear a yarmulke everywhere,” he says.
Polarization in Gelber’s youth meant that as a Jew he was treated differently than most other children. “I was not allowed to go to kindergarten and was no longer allowed to enter shops. In 1942 we were thrown out of our house and imprisoned in Camp Westerbork.”
The Holocaust survivor fears a further increase in anti-Semitism and hopes that people will continue to use their common sense. “It stems from the incitement by certain groups. You have to continue to see reality and not just take a one-sided view.”
Today, the Remembrance Center mainly hoped to create meetings between people and start a conversation. Minco: “Immerse yourself in each other, talk to each other, get to know each other. It will not contribute to the solution to the conflict if we start a fight here in the Netherlands.”