Welcome and introduction

We are two students, Marissa Herder & Charlie Maynard, studying at Leiden University College The Hague. The aim of this blog is to convey a study for a comparative worldviews course, highlighting difference on a cultural and religious level, whilst at the same time pushing for a change in the way this difference is represented. The China Town in the Hague was gradually founded over a number of years following the Second World War, replacing what was previously the largest Jewish neighborhood in The Hague. Given that this was established after the War, it's quite a sensitive topic among certain people, especially considering the conversion of the Synagogue to today's Mosque.

The area behind the ‘New Church’, between the ‘Stille Veerkade’ and the ‘Amsterdamse Veerkade’, the ‘Gedempte Burgwal’ and the ‘Gedempte Gracht’ formed the former Jewish Neighborhood, with about 17.000 residents. It was a poor place where people mostly lived from vending their goods in the streets. The characteristics of this neighborhood were the narrow streets and the small squares. Around 1943, the community was highly impacted by the Second World. According to a recent documentary about the Wagenstraat, the deportation of Jews from The Hague was more efficient than anywhere else in Europe. After the war, only roughly 2000 members of the community returned, and the neighborhood would never be the same.
Today there are a few memorials which represent the previous neighborhood, its inhabitants that used to live there and the suffering which many of them were forced to endure as they were torn from their homes and taken to concentration camps in Germany, Poland and a number of other countries. However, it is our feeling that today there is a great lack in representation of the Jewish Neighborhood. This is not to say that there are no memorials or signs of it, but rather that these indicators are not doing what they were designed to do, which is to inform people of a history.

When residents of the Hague are asked; 'Did you know that the China Town used to be the Jewish Neighborhood?', the most common answer is simply 'no'. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but in recognition of the impact that the Shoah had upon the Jewish community not only in the Hague, but all over Europe, it seems as though people should at least be aware of the history. It is our feeling that the local government could be doing a much better job of educating the public on this topic, thus it is on this basis that we conducted the following interviews which are discussed and explained below.