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Camp Westerbork Remembrance Center has made extra preparations to ensure that the commemoration of the dead can take place safely. Bertien Minco, director of the memorial center, said this this afternoon in the RTV Drenthe radio program Cassata.
Minco is ready for tonight’s Remembrance Day. She doesn’t worry about safety. “I am actually very calm, because we are well prepared. We have very good contact with the municipality, police and the security region. There are also no indications of unrest, so let it happen,” she says.
This preparation includes the measure that there will be more police officers in Westerbork than in previous years. Minco also notices that there is a tense atmosphere surrounding the commemoration. “There is always some commotion about how and who we commemorate, but it has never been like now. That people have to be searched on De Dam.”
“Terrible,” Minco calls the threatening situation. She hopes that no further measures will be taken for Camp Westerbork. In the conversation in front of the Dam last Wednesday, Minco said that this year’s preparations were different from previous years. “We are not isolated from the world. We have prepared ourselves very differently than in recent years. And we are told what we should possibly do, based on analyses. Because let’s be honest, we of course have no experience. We are a museum, storytellers, not a police.”
“Commemoration is something that you do collectively and it is something that you want to do in an accessible and open manner. Freedom means that everyone can have their own opinion, but during Remembrance Day you come together to be together,” she concludes.
