Kristallnacht commemoration Amsterdam, Digi Mart USA News (Amsterdam, Netherlands): Kristallnacht was commemorated in Amsterdam on the 88th anniversary of the 1938 pogrom. Chanan Hertzberger, chairman of the Central Jewish Consultation (CJO), gave a speech with a notably political message in which he directly linked the event to the Red Line demonstration held the previous day.
Hertzberger thanked Prime Minister Jetten for not yielding to the demands of the organizers of what he called an anti-Israel demonstration. According to the organization, at least 200,000 people took part in the Red Line demonstration against the Dutch government’s Israel policy.
Demonstrators argue that violations of international law are being normalized and that this must stop, and they demand, among other things, that military cooperation with Israel be halted.
By wearing red, the demonstrators figuratively drew a red line. Hertzberger said the measures demanded would amount, directly or indirectly, to wiping Israel off the map.
He said it was to be expected that the extremes of the political spectrum would embrace the “genocide lie” regarding the violence in Gaza.
Hertzberger noted that an independent United Nations commission of inquiry concluded last year that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. He said that a court, not demonstrators or politicians, determines whether genocide is taking place.
He stated that Jews are being held collectively responsible and that they are being pushed to the margins of society in cities including Arnhem, Groningen and Amsterdam.
In his speech, Hertzberger drew parallels between history and the present. He concluded that the question is not how often antisemitism has been condemned, but what has actually been done to combat it.
For the first time in ten years, a Dutch prime minister also delivered a speech at the commemoration. Prime Minister Jetten spoke of anti-Jewish sentiment in the Netherlands, stating that pogroms are timeless and that violence against Jews is never far away.
He described antisemitism as having “never really gone away” and as a smoldering peat fire with flames of hatred that flare up again. He said such expressions increasingly reach the public through debate and social media.
Hertzberger emphasized the importance of the prime minister’s presence, saying Jewish life in the Netherlands is increasingly under pressure. The commemoration recalled that on the night of November 9 to 10, 1938, Jews across Germany, Austria and parts of what was then Czechoslovakia were attacked, arrested or murdered in an organized pogrom by National Socialists.
Hundreds of Jews were killed, synagogues were set on fire, and Jewish shops and homes were looted and destroyed. Jewish schools and cemeteries were also targeted.
An estimated 30,000 arrested Jews were sent to concentration camps.
Jetten said that in the days after Kristallnacht thousands of German Jews fled to the Netherlands seeking safety, and that most did so in vain. He recounted a book he received from a young man telling the story of his great-grandmother, who survived the camps.
He said the cabinet has allocated funds to protect Jewish buildings and institutions, but that combating antisemitism must be more than action and reaction and that society must become more resilient. He said he had hung a Delft blue mezuzah at his front door to show that he wants to be prime minister of a country where Jewish life is visible.
