The Netherlands’s National Holocaust Museum opened yesterday in a ceremony presided over by the Dutch king as well as Israeli President Isaac Herzog, whose presence is prompting protest because of Israel’s deadly offensive against Palestinians in Gaza.
The museum in Amsterdam tells the stories of some of the 102,000 Jews who were deported from the Netherlands and murdered in Nazi camps, as well as the history of their structural persecution under German World War II occupation before the deportations began.
Three-quarters of Dutch Jews were among the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis, the largest proportion of any country in Europe.
Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Herzog will visit a synagogue and open the museum against a backdrop of Israel’s devastating attacks on Gaza that followed the deadly incursions by Hamas in southern Israel on Oct. 7. Both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protests are planned outside the events.
A pro-Palestinian Dutch organization, The Rights Forum, called Herzog’s presence “a slap in the face of the Palestinians who can only helplessly watch how Israel murders their loved ones and destroys their land.”
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