Exhibition 'The Netherlands and the Shoah' in National Holocaust Museum
At the heart of this exhibition is the fate of the Jews of the Netherlands during the Second World War. The Nazis persecuted them and aimed to kill every single one. They managed to murder around six million, eradicating Jewish communities and culture throughout Europe. This is known as the Holocaust, or in Hebrew: Shoah, meaning catastrophe. The Nazis persecuted and massacred other groups too, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, resisters, Roma and Sinti, and homosexuals.
The Nazis and their collaborators made a series of deliberate choices, fed by an intense hatred of Jews. War gave the perpetrators a perfect cover to implement far-reaching policies of discrimination, segregation, theft, impoverishment, exploitation, deportation and finally murder. The exhibition shows how regulations and people enabled this. Personal stories and experiences reveal the consequences for those who lived through it.
