{"id":1368,"date":"2011-05-06T12:10:11","date_gmt":"2011-05-06T12:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/?p=1368"},"modified":"2011-09-02T08:50:54","modified_gmt":"2011-09-02T08:50:54","slug":"remembering-and-celebrating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/remembering-and-celebrating\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering and Celebrating"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two important days for the Netherlands have just passed \u2013 May 4<sup>th<\/sup> was Remembrance Day and May 5<sup>th<\/sup> was Liberation Day.\u00a0 If you were in the country, especially in Amsterdam, over these two days then you were probably aware of some of the events taking place and perhaps you even participated in them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Remembrance Day<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Remembrance Day or Dodenherdenking is a day commemorating all the Dutch who died in WWII and conflicts worldwide afterwards.\u00a0 It is an official event with a National Remembrance Service held in the Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam followed by an evening wreath-laying ceremony in Dam Square, which is nationally televised.\u00a0 At 8pm there is a two minute, nationwide silence.\u00a0 Followed by speeches and wreaths laid by veterans and victims\u2019 relatives.\u00a0 Members of the Dutch Royal Family are also in attendance.<\/p>\n<p>Security was tighter this year at Dam Square and the surrounding area, as you can see in the video below, due to an incident that happened at last year\u2019s event.\u00a0 A panic erupted during the two minutes silence when a man with mental health issues began screaming.\u00a0 Sadly, several people were injured during the disruption. \u00a0This year everything went as planned.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"GEERT WILDERS BIJ DODENHERDENKING 2011 OP DE DAM IN AMSTERDAM\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zMWcsOJT6Fo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Liberation Day<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Liberation Day or Bevrijdingsdag is a celebration of freedom, marking the end of occupation by Nazi Germany during WWII.\u00a0 Events, readings and exhibitions occur throughout the day.\u00a0 Open air pop festivals occur throughout many Dutch cities and there is a televised concert on the Amstel River in Amsterdam with many top performers.\u00a0 One of the highlights of the concerts is the attendance by the Queen.\u00a0 She leaves the concert via a boat that sails past the crowds.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YRcJvlZpwMg\">http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YRcJvlZpwMg<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Origin<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The tradition between these two events, one serious and reflective followed by another more celebratory day, is quite interesting.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nlplanet.com\/almanac\/liberation-day\" target=\"_blank\">NL Planet<\/a> describes the background as follows:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cIn the early years, Remembrance Day reflected a more sombre public mood. All over Holland there were silent processions in memory of fallen local Resistance members and fellow citizens shot by the Germans. Their slogan was \u201cno celebration without commemoration\u201d, so Remembrance Day always fell before Liberation Day. Their well-attended processions contrasted with the rather stuffy, official commemoration in the Hague.\u00a0 It took the Dutch government until the eighties to come up with a unified, national format for the proceedings which in some way emulated the atmosphere of those early local, silent processions.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Did you attend the concert or participate in any of the other events happening around the country? \u00a0What was your experience like?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two important days for the Netherlands have just passed \u2013 May 4th was Remembrance Day and May 5th was Liberation Day.\u00a0 If you were in the country, especially in Amsterdam, over these two days then you were probably aware of some of the events taking place and perhaps you even participated in them. Remembrance Day&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/remembering-and-celebrating\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[60713],"tags":[27665,3606,3643,27664],"class_list":["post-1368","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture-2","tag-bevrijdingsdag","tag-dodenherdenking","tag-liberation-day","tag-remembrance-day"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1368"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1544,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1368\/revisions\/1544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}