Margriet opens the renewed Resistance Museum in Amsterdam
Princess Margriet will open the renovated Resistance Museum in Amsterdam on Thursday. The exhibition house in the capital says it comes with a broader story than before. It will be an inclusive exhibition, which not only sheds light on history from the perspective of the “average white Dutchman” but also features stories from resistance fighters from the colonies. In the new set-up, perpetrators of the Second World War are more prominently featured and attention is paid to the various sides of the resistance.
The museum tells about the occupation on the basis of, among other things, a hundred personal stories, film projections and animations. Like about Jacoba Blom-Schuh dying in prison because she was confused about giving money to the collector for the National Socialist Winter Aid because, according to her, the proceeds were for the Germans and NSB members. But also about Anton de Kom, born in Surinam, who campaigned against Dutch colonial rule and wrote for the resistance newspaper De Vonk. The exhibition also includes the farewell letter of artist Willem Arondéus, who was betrayed and won after he met friends from the Amsterdam population register where personal cards were checked for authenticity. Arondéus, who came out openly about his homosexuality, asked a friend just before his execution to tell the world that homosexuals are not weak.
While the emphasis is on the development of the resistance, the visitor will learn more about the German occupiers, Allied liberators, the hundreds of thousands of civilian victims and forced laborers and the 25,000 Dutch boys who voluntarily fought in Russia for the Waffen-SS.
The exhibition is fully accessible to the blind, visually impaired, deaf, hard of hearing and low-literate people, something in which the Resistance Museum claims to be at the forefront.