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November 17,
2021
By Bart FM Droog
For the first time in 75 years, a Jewish clergyman spoke at the ceremony on Volkstrauertag, the German war remembrance day, at the German military cemetery at Ysselsteyn, in the municipality of Venray (Limburg), Sunday November 14, 2021. This speech was doubly special, as the Chief Rabbi protested loudly at last year's commemoration. Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs said, standing among the nearly 32,000 war dead buried there: "Last Tuesday, the day of the commemoration of Kristallnacht, I stood with my friend Theo Vleugels, director of the Netherlands War Graves Foundation, in the hell of Auschwitz, where Jews were industrially and systematically murdered with the aim of exterminating the entire Jewish people. And now I stand here, five days later, with a heavy feeling. I almost feel like a traitor. A traitor to my own people, to the resistance fighters, to the innocents who did not survive that terrible, dark period of '40-'45. A traitor, because in this cemetery there are also horrible murderers who are responsible for the fact that 80% of my family 'did not return', as we call it so sterile. They lie here, I deliberately avoid the word rest, because I know that upstairs, where lies do not take root, they have not escaped their deserved punishment and have not, have not and will not get a moment's rest. But at the same time I am grateful. Next to me here are friends, also German, who understand that the past cannot and must not be forgotten or forgiven. We want to show that the distinction between Menschen and Übermenschen should not and never be made and we want to warn, warn, warn. Sadly, anti-Semitism is back in full swing; the virus that has mutated over the centuries is extremely active again. During the Crusades, we were allowed to be destroyed because we had killed Jesus. In the Middle Ages we caused the plague, my parents were of the wrong race, they were not Aryans, and I am a Zionist! To my mind, the only historical law is that people never learn from history, so I fear that the anti-Semitic virus is ineradicable. But in spite of this, we must not sit back, we must be vigilant and come together to show our youth in particular how wrong it can be when people are prepared to turn from human beings into murderous villains. The historian Prof. Presser writes in "Ondergang" (Downfall) that of the Dutch only 5% were collaborators, only 5% committed resistance against the Nazi reign of terror and the remaining 90% stood by and let it happen. And that is why it is good that we are here together, I am grateful with the educational exhibition, I hope that Dutch and German youth will come together here, to prevent that the herd, the 90%, will choose the wrong direction again. There are 32,000 graves here. I am grateful that the hole in this wall is going to be filled with a plaque that will mention that the 102,000 [murdered Dutch] Jews, Sinti and Roma were not given a grave. But in fact, this hole, now that the plaque has not been inserted yet, speaks volumes, more than any text, because the horror of that time cannot be described in words, cannot be captured in a plaque and is and remains a gaping wound. Through the gas chambers and the chimneys of the crematoria they disappeared into the dark hole of oblivion, far away from their Netherlands, where they would so gladly have died naturally and been buried. After this, the Chief Rabbi said a prayer in which the names of concentration camps were mentioned, and a prayer for peace for all the nations of Your earth, partly in Hebrew and partly in Dutch.
On
why he attended and spoke at Ysselsteyn, despite his
earlier protest,
Jacobs tells in his online diary on the the New
Israelite Weekly
(NIW) site:
The ceremony ended with the reading of the declaration of what is commemorated, the so-called Totengedenken (Commemoration of the dead). This text, which was read out on Sunday at numerous locations in Germany and German war cemeteries in other countries, reads (in translation): Today we think of the victims of violence and war,children, women and men of all nations. We
remember in captivity, as displaced persons and refugees. We
remember those were seen as of a different race, were part of a minority or whose lives were because of illness or disability deemed unworthy of life. We
remember those and those who died because of their conviction or belies. We
mourn political persecution, for the soldiers of the German Armed Forces and Germans of other forces, who lost their lives on missions abroad. Today we also remember those who have fallen victim to hatred and violence at home.We remember the victims of terrorism and extremism, anti-Semitism and racism in our country. We mourn with all who suffer because of the dead andshare their pain. But
our lives are marked by the and our responsibility is to bring peace among people at home and throughout the world.
For the rest of what happened last Sunday at Ysselsteyn, I give the floor to three people who were present there. Eyewitness 1, who wishes to remain anonymous for security reasons: "Around 14:15 there was some commotion when two gentlemen were escorted to the exit by the Netherlands military police. That was done without many people noticing. There was quite a lot of security, visible and invisible. At least ten people (apart from the military who were ceremonially present, including two generals). There was no military display, no wreaths were laid. Almost all speeches referred in one way or another to the changes compared to the old format of commemoration on Volkstrauertag. For a private gathering, it was quite busy. Including all the actors, it could have been as many as one hundred and fifty to two hundred people. It was dry, but a bit cold to stand still for an hour and a half. Chief Rabbi Jacobs was fierce, but sounded sincere and convincing. Eyewitness 2 is the renowned Nazi hunter and journalist Hans Knoop, who last year accompanied the Chief Rabbi to the German ambassador: "I can only emphasise that it was a dignified and respectful gathering, dedicated to the memory of the victims of the dead who are buried there. With that, the narrative has turned 180 degrees compared to previous gatherings." Eyewitness 3 is Richard Schoutissen, of the Foundation for War Victims, who recounts the history of Volkstrauertag on the foundation's site: "The Chief Rabbi was visibly emotional during his speech, in which he made it clear that he cannot forgive the people, who murdered his family." The two removed gentlemen, who Eyewitness 1 saw, have not yet been positively identified. According to informed sources, they are two people from the group of fake resistance fighters whose banners with "No SS" and "PROTESST" inscriptions were confiscated in 2014, when this group - then consisting of the activist gone mad Arthur Graaff, the anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist Kees van der Pijl and his wife and two others - protested against Volkstrauertag at Ysselsteyn.
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