Hollandsche Schouwburg

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The Hollandsche Schouwburg (2005)

The Hollandsche Schouwburg is a former theater in Amsterdam . At the time of the German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II , the building served as a meeting point for Jews before they were transported to the Westerbork transit camp or the Herzogenbusch concentration camp . From there the people were deported to extermination camps , where most of them were murdered. Today the Schouwburg serves as a memorial and exhibition space, the building itself is a Rijksmonument .

history

The theater

Poster for the performance De Bokkenrijder of het skelet in the Schouwburg in 1919

The Hollandsche Schouwburg at the Middenlaan plantation in the Plantagebuurt in Amsterdam was opened on May 5, 1892. It was the fourth theater in the district and the most luxurious. The building was designed by the architect Cornelis Antonius Bombach , who was responsible for other representative buildings in Amsterdam. It had space for 1360 spectators and was illuminated with a gas chandelier with 140 individual lights. There was a sprinkler system , a novelty in 1892. In the first two years the theater was called Artis Schouwburg because the property had been home to the director of the Artis Zoo , Gerard Westerman. After two years the theater went bankrupt, was leased by the new owners to the Nederlandsche Tooneelvereeniging , a socialist theater group, and was given its new name. In-house scribe was Herman Heijermans , who among other things wrote the successful play Op hoop van zegen for the theater , which was filmed several times, in 1924 as a German-Dutch co-production and silent film with Adele Sandrock in the lead role. In 1930 the theater was renovated under the direction of the architect Wolter Bakker .

Until 1940 the theater, which stood on the edge of Amsterdam's Jewish quarter , was very successful; operettas, revues and popular pieces were performed there. Most recently Herbert Nelson , a Jewish émigré from Berlin, staged revues by his father Rudolf Nelson in which the popular singer and comedian Heintje Davids appeared. She later belonged to the directors of the Van Leer Foundation , which supported Jewish artists. The foundation arose from a “deal” between the Jewish factory owner Bernard van Leer and the German occupiers, who was allowed to leave the Netherlands with his family after paying a large sum of money; part of the money was put into the foundation.

Herbert Nelson wrote this text for one of the revues:
Because this is life
full of fear and tremors,
and every moment
is one hundred percent.
Something is going on
in the big street.
And what happens happens to
us.

In 1941 the German occupiers ordered the theater to be renamed Joodse Schouwburg ; Actors, musicians and spectators were only allowed to be Jews. The revues produced in the following period were so popular that non-Jewish Amsterdam residents borrowed ID cards from their Jewish friends in order to be admitted to the theater.

Collection point for Jews

Albert Konrad Gemmeker and Fünten (r., 1942)

At the end of July 1942, the head of the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Amsterdam , Ferdinand from Fünten , appeared in the theater and announced the end of theater operations. "The Hollandsche Schouwburg had had its day as the last sanctuary for Jewish culture in Amsterdam [...]."

From then until 1943 the building served as a registration and collection point for Jewish people before they were transported to concentration and extermination camps , a “transit camp for death”. For this purpose, the Central Office for Jewish Emigration created lists based on records from the Amsterdam administration. The Jews concerned were asked by letter to be ready to travel to the Schouwburg the day after receiving the letter for a “work assignment” in the east . Originally, the nearby Portuguese synagogue should have been used as a deportation center. But the synagogue has huge windows that are difficult to darken and you could have seen from outside what was happening inside, which is why the occupiers opted for the theater because it has no windows and is relatively soundproof.

Not all Jews responded to the demands to work, however, so that the occupiers soon dispatched police officers such as the “elite unit” of Police President Sybren Tulp , the black Schalkhaarders , who arrested around 2,000 Jewish people in one day and brought them to the Schouwburg . The artists who had worked in the theater up to that point were appointed to look after the new arrivals on behalf of the Jewish Council of Amsterdam and were given a “ban” for this, so they were initially not deported; their boss was the German Jew Walter Süskind appointed by the Judenrat .

Subsequently, Jewish people were picked up from their homes or picked up during raids, with the support of “normal” police officers, a few of whom, who felt sorry for them, wrote letters of complaint or refused. Other police officers, however, only complained about the overtime that was incurred. Other victims were either betrayed by Dutch collaborators or brought to Schouwburg by force. The helpers received a “ bounty ” for every Jew delivered . The standard tariff was initially 7.50 guilders, later a little higher.

1300 people were sometimes cramped together in the building under extremely cramped conditions and had to share five toilets and two sinks. The situation in the Schouwburg reminded one of the visitors of “Naples, when the plague raged there”, and the stench was unbearable. Some victims spent not just days but weeks on the armchairs of the former theater. Members of the Henneicke column belonged to the guards and excelled through cruelty by beating people or kicking them. A former employee of the Judenrat recalled that a man from the column behaved “like a beast”, “especially when Germans were around”.

The prisoners were taken to Amsterdam Central Station by tram . Around 15,000 people were deported from there to Westerbork or to the Herzogenbusch (Dutch: Kamp Vught ) concentration camp, 60,000 to 80,000 people from the Netherlands in total.

Süskind and his staff often made the German guards drunk during drinking bouts and meanwhile manipulated the lists of persons and the numbers. They succeeded again and again in smuggling people out of the crowd in the Schouwburg , also by bribing the (mostly Dutch) guards. In his relationship with the occupiers, Süskind benefited from the fact that he had once gone to school together with von der Fünten, which in the end did not protect him from being deported himself.

In October 1942, on the initiative of Süskind, a “children's house” was opened on the opposite side of the street in the former Hervormden Kweekschool for children up to the age of twelve, who were housed there - separated from their parents - until their planned deportation. Walter Süskind, together with employees of the Joodschen Raad and in collaboration with the school principal Johan van Hulst and resistance groups, managed to save up to 600 children from deportation. The helpers benefited from the fact that then (as now) there was a tram stop in front of the Schouwburg . When the tram stopped and blocked the view, they would run alongside the tram with a child by the hand and get on at the next stop. Although the tram drivers and passengers saw this and knew where the children were from, they were never betrayed. They smuggled smaller children out of the “children's house” in washing baskets or rucksacks. Their parents provided them with straw dolls that were wrapped in blankets to simulate a baby. The children were brought to safety in foster families.

In April 1943 the resistance group CS-6 tried to set the Schouwburg on fire, but only a small fire broke out. On September 29, 1943, the last major raid took place in Amsterdam, which was subsequently declared " Jew-free ", and on November 19, 1943 the Schouwburg was closed. The building was sold to private individuals during the war.

Ferdinand von der Fünten was sentenced to death in the Netherlands after the war; the sentence was later converted to life imprisonment, to the great indignation of large parts of the population. As one of the four from Breda , he remained imprisoned for 44 years until 1989, shortly after his release he died in the same year at the age of 79.

The Schouwburg as a memorial

Memorial in the Schouwburg
Information board on the building
The Nationaal Holocaust Museum in the building of the former crèche

Before the end of the war and afterwards, the Schouwburg served as a festival and dance hall under the name Piccadilly . The fact that this place was used as an entertainment venue met with such violent protests, especially from survivors of the persecution of Jews, that public events in this building were banned by the community. In the aftermath of the protests, a committee was formed under the chairmanship of Prince Bernhard , which in consultation with the city of Amsterdam bought the building for 300,000 guilders ; A fundraising campaign raised 200,000 guilders, with Bernard van Leer contributing a substantial remainder. The new owner was the Stichting Hollandsche Schouwburg , which transferred the building to the city on the condition that no more entertainment events take place there and that a Chapelle Ardente (from French, literally burning chapel = hall of the dead) with an eternal flame should be set up. Years of discussions followed about the further use of the Schouwburg . In 1952, figures had to be removed from the facade as they threatened to fall onto the street, and the building itself was now almost in ruins. There were voices calling for the Schouwburg to be demolished out of "deference to the dead".

In 1958, the then Israeli Prime Minister Jizchak Ben Zwi visited the Netherlands and also visited the Schouwburg . After this visit, the decision was made to turn the building into a memorial. However, only the facade was preserved, the rest was torn down: “You don't keep gas chambers in good condition,” said a councilor. Behind the facade, on the ground floor, the funeral hall was built, in which a wall with stones from Israel was erected. In the now existing inner courtyard, the former theater hall, a memorial with the layout of a Star of David was erected.

In 1965 the monumental study Ondergang was carried out in the Schouwburg . De vervolging en verdelging van het Nederlandse Jodendom 1940–1945 presented by Jacques Presser . Three years later, the German President Gustav Heinemann visited the Schouwburg . At the initiative of the residents, a memorial ceremony takes place on May 5th each year. In 1966, the custom arose to commemorate Yom HaSho'a every year .

In 1992 the Hollandsche Schouwburg came under the care of the Jewish Historical Museum , which developed it from a pure memorial to an exhibition space; it is now part of the Joods Cultureel Kwartier . An exhibition on the persecution of Jews in the Netherlands was created on the first floor. In 1993 the Chapelle Ardente was redesigned and given a name wall on which the names of 6,700 murdered Jews are attached. Mayor Ed van Thijn , himself a survivor of the Holocaust , opened the memorial room and re-lit the Eternal Flame. One conference room is named after Walter Süskind.

The Schouwburg is - next to the Anne Frank House - the most important memorial to the extermination of the Jews in the Netherlands. The plan is to convert the building opposite the Schouwburg , in which the crèche was located, into the National Holocaust Museum , some of which was opened in 2016. To raise the necessary funds, the Jewish community sold the Amsterdam Machsor , a precious Hebrew manuscript from the 13th century.

Since 2012, the Schouwburg has been the start of the Westerborkpad , a 340-kilometer hiking route that symbolizes the persecution of Jews and leads from the Schouwburg to the former Westerbork camp.

Since 2016, the building has been on the list of Dutch cultural monuments ( Rijksmonument ) under number 532241 .

Wrong name on the wall

In 1981 the Instituut voor Oorlogs-, Holocaust- and Genocidestudies (NIOD) received around 5000 negatives from the photographer Franz Anton Stapf through the Dutch consulate in Vancouver . The Canadian allies had confiscated these after the war in the Netherlands; For decades they had been forgotten in an archive there. The National Socialist Stapf worked as a photographer for the German occupation authorities and, among other things, took photos for the anti-Semitic propaganda work Vuil - lompen - rommel - bron van infecties - cultuurschande voor een modern volk! Dat is a jodenmarkt in Nederland (dirt - rags - garbage - source of infection - cultural disgrace for a modern people! This is the Jewish market in the Netherlands) . Stapf died in Germany in 1977.

In 2017, the historians René Kok and Erik Somers from NIOD noticed that the name of Stapf was incorrectly listed on the wall of names of the Jewish victims and that it is also in other memorial books. The mistake was probably made because Stapf had volunteered on the Eastern Front in 1941 and the administration had noted: “Afgevoerd” (“Discharged”). From this it was mistakenly concluded in the 1950s that he had been deported because of his Jewish origin. The names of his wife and children were also on the board. The names were removed from the wall, but initially only provisionally, as the glass wall does not allow a trace-free removal.

literature

  • Barbara Beuys : Living with the Enemy. Amsterdam under German occupation 1940–1945 . Carl Hanser, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-446-23996-8 .
  • Frits Boterman: Duitse Daders. De Jodenvervolging en die Nazificatie van Nederland (1940–1945) . De Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam / Antwerp 2015, ISBN 978-90-295-0486-7 .
  • Ad van Liempt: bounty. Paid denunciation of Jews in the occupied Netherlands . Siedler, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-88680-801-7 .

Web links

Commons : Hollandsche Schouwburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Een theater in de Plantage - Joods Cultureel Kwartier. In: jck.nl. Retrieved January 21, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b Hollandsche Schouwburg. In: joodsamsterdam.nl. 1, accessed January 20, 2018 (Dutch).
  3. ↑ a b Hollandsche Schouwburg. In: dutchamsterdam.nl. August 19, 2017, accessed January 20, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Heijermans kon uiteraard niet bevroeden dat de Hollandsche Schouwburg later een markering in de Nederlandse geschiedenis zou been. In: mokums.nl. December 24, 1911, accessed January 20, 2018 (Dutch).
  5. ↑ Beuys, Leben mit dem Feind , p. 167 f.
  6. ↑ Beuys, Leben mit dem Feind , p. 169.
  7. ↑ Beuys, Leben mit dem Feind , p. 209.
  8. ↑ Hollandsche Schouwburg. In: 4en5meiamsterdam.nl. Retrieved January 20, 2018 (Dutch).
  9. ↑ Beuys, Leben mit dem Feind , p. 186.
  10. ↑ a b Beuys, Leben mit dem Feind , p. 214.
  11. ^ Rolf Zundel: Six horses in the castle. In: zeit.de . November 21, 2012, accessed January 22, 2018 .
  12. ↑ Kerstin Schweighöfer: Atonement work in the Netherlands - “You can't make up for that”. In: deutschlandfunk.de. May 6, 2020, accessed May 10, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Beuys, Leben mit dem Feind , p. 255.
  14. ↑ Beuys, Leben mit dem Feind , p. 219.
  15. ↑ a b SHALOM. In: shalom-magazine.com. January 15, 1943, accessed January 21, 2018 .
  16. ↑ Beuys, Leben mit dem Feind , p. 231.
  17. ^ Van Liempt, head money , p. 143.
  18. ^ Amsterdam, De Hollandsche Schouwburg. In: 4en5mei.nl. September 4, 2017, accessed January 21, 2018 (Dutch).
  19. ^ Van Liempt, head money , p. 143.
  20. ↑ Herman van Rens mmv: Vervolgd in Limburg. Uitgeverij Verloren, 2013, ISBN 978-9-087-04353-7 , p. 231 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  21. ↑ a b Beuys, Leben mit dem Feind , p. 260 f.
  22. ↑ Beuys, Leben mit dem Feind , p. 216 f.
  23. ↑ Beuys, Leben mit dem Feind , p. 255.
  24. ^ Van Liempt, head money , p. 151.
  25. ^ Van Liempt, head money , p. 144.
  26. ↑ Beuys, Leben mit dem Feind , p. 288.
  27. ^ A b Voor Joden is de Hollandsche Schouwburg van groter betekenis dan het Anne Frankhuis. In: dedokwerker.nl. Retrieved January 21, 2018 .
  28. ↑ a b c d e f De Hollandsche Schouwburg as plaats van herinnering - Joods Cultureel Kwartier. In: jck.nl. January 25, 2006, accessed January 21, 2018 .
  29. ^ Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität M & uu: NiederlandeNet - History - Persecution of Nazi criminals - Four from Breda. In: uni-muenster.de. March 9, 2011, accessed January 26, 2018 .
  30. ↑ Katja Happe: Many false hopes. Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, 2017, ISBN 978-3-657-78424-0 , p. 249 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  31. ↑ a b Roel hijinks: Voormalige concentratiekampen. Uitgeverij Verloren, 2011, ISBN 978-9-087-04266-0 , p. 115 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  32. ↑ Christine Gundermann: The reconciled citizens. Waxmann Verlag, 2014, ISBN 978-3-830-98129-9 , p. 391 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  33. ↑ Edward van Voolen: De Hollandsche Schouwburg: verander end vormen van herinneren commemorate s. In: digibron.nl. December 7, 2008, accessed on January 21, 2018 (nl_NL).
  34. ↑ Central Council of Jews in Germany Kdö.R: Netherlands: Remembering in the Schouwburg. In: Jüdische Allgemeine. January 22, 2018, accessed January 22, 2018 .
  35. ↑ Nationaal Holocaust Museum in oprichting - Joods Cultureel Kwartier. In: jck.nl. Retrieved January 22, 2018 .
  36. ↑ Matthias Hendorf: “Miqua” exhibition: Hebrew document returns after almost 600 years. In: rundschau-online.de. December 14, 2017. Retrieved December 17, 2017 .
  37. ↑ Rijksmonument 532241: De Hollandsche Schouwburg - Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed. In: monumentenregister.cultureelerfgoed.nl. Retrieved January 21, 2018 (Dutch).
  38. ↑ Nazi photographer mistaken as Jewish Holocaust victim for Decades. In: nltimes.nl. February 16, 2017, accessed January 21, 2018 .
  39. ↑ a b Arno Haijtema: Franz Anton Stapf is cooked as Joods slachtoffer, maar blijkt nazi-fotograaf. In: volkskrant.nl. Retrieved January 21, 2018 (nl_NL).

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