Mirror Memorial for Auschwitz

In the year 1952 a simple stone was placed at the Amsterdam Eastern Cemetery as a reminder to Auschwitz.

The memorial was replaced in 1977 by the Mirror memorial, designed by Jan Wolkers. It was also moved to the Wertheimpark. Later the memorial was considered too small and that's why Jan Wolkers designed a new and bigger Mirror memorial: the present one.

The memorial reflects the sky through broken mirrors, because the sky will never be the same after Auschwitz.

At this day all Auschwitz memorials are being held at the monument, followed by a remembrance-lunch.

The text by the memorial reads:
"The downfall of the Jews in the Netherlands
on May 10, 1940, the day of the invasion by Nazi Germany,
140,000 Jewish men, women and children lived in the Netherlands.

Between July 15, 1942 and September 3, 1944 were
more than 107,000 Jews deported from the Netherlands.
Only 5,200 survived the Nazi concentration camps and returned.

Auschwitz and Sobibor were death camps in Poland,
mainly built for massacre.
For 95,000 Jews from the Netherlands were these camps their final destination.
Not more than 500 of them have survived.

Auschwitz has become a symbol of
the attempted destruction of the Jewish people.
This monument is erected in commemoration of the hundreds of thousands,
the millions of victims of racial delusions.

This is a place of remembrance and grief, of guilt and repentance,
a warning for all generations throughout the world."

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Source

• Text: Teije Terhorst
• Photos: Rob Bosma (1, 2, 3), Anne Bolijn (4), Dick de Bruijne (5)