Recommendations for The Hague

First of all, we feel that a city such as The Hague that is internationally known and has a prominent place in the Dutch culture, should have a clear history on their website. The Hague does have such a section, but it takes at least five different links to get there. Furthermore, the Jewish history is completely ignored. The history of the city center has exactly one line about it: ‘A lot of Jews lived in this part of the city.’ Now this does clearly no justice to the culturally diverse neighborhood.
Secondly, The Hague has established a list of monuments in which only street names and house numbers are listed. While the former Synagogue at Wagenstraat 103 has earned a place on the list, the Children’s monument has not. This list is updated every year and the monument is now six years old, so it is very strange that it is still not a part of the monuments. We feel that The Hague could at least put the link to the website of the Children’s monument on their website, because it also contains a lot of information on the history of the neighborhood.
Thirdly, local political parties such as D66, the PvdA and the VVD have been putting the location of the model of the old Jewish neighborhood in question. However, nothing has happened since it was all over the local newspapers in the beginning of this year. We think it is a very good initiative to move the model to a more prominent place in the City Hall, especially when it will be accompanied by signs and information panels. There has been no resistance so far by other parties, so it is a mystery why the attention has faded again. Moreover, the website of The Hague reports citizens asking questions about the model of the old Jewish neighborhood, so apparently there it still lives among the citizens. Hopefully, we can make this blog reach the right people and put some additional effort in getting the attention back to this issue, so that there will be some changes in the near future.
Lastly, instead of creating yet another committee to address this issue, we urge The Hague to look at the already existing initiatives. If the right people are brought together, a lot of the work could be saved and the remembering of the Jewish history may actually take a new and refreshing turn. If at least the Amalek monument could be moved to the Rabbijn Maarsenplein with the other two memorials, the square itself gets a clear character and people will sooner notice all three of the monuments.
If nobody knows what a memorial is trying to make people remember, there is no point in having one. Therefore, the task of the city of The Hague should now be to keep the history alive, and as the ring around the Children’s monument says: ‘Let us not forget them and make sure this never happens again.’ Since that, according to us, is the main purpose of any war memorial.