Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters awaited Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Sunday outside the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam, after the president arrived to take part in the museum's opening ceremony on invitation from Dutch monarch Willem-Alexander.
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The demonstrators displayed Palestinian flags and signs against Israel, in numbers large enough to surround the entire structure. Given early warnings about this assembly, the Shin Bet VIP protection detail beefed up their numbers to protect Herzog.
Demonstrators outside the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam
The museum itself features painful stories of Holocaust victims in the Netherlands, using video footage, pictures, keepsakes and WWII-era souvenirs.
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From an exhibit at the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam,
(Photo: EPA/BART MAAT )
Head curator Annemiek Gringold creates several exhibition rooms that did not skimp on horrific detail when it comes to the crimes against humanity committed by the Nazis at that time, including the image of a boy passing by a cart full of dead Jewish bodies in Bergen-Belsen. Also, one of the displays shows keepsakes and souvenirs of lives lost: A doll, an orange dress and a collection of 10 buttons found while excavating around the Sobibor extermination camp.
The museum is located in the city's Jewish quarter, close to a Holocaust-remembrance monument that was inaugurated in 2021. "The events in Israel, including the ongoing war, are constantly on my mind, but I focus on the specific history revealed in this museum," Gringold said.