By Mr. Jozias van Aartsen, Mayor of The Hague.
This year it will be seventy years ago that the Second World War came to an end and The Hague was liberated by the Canadians. That war with the battle for the royal seat in May 1940 and the five years that followed, were undoubtedly the most dramatic period in the history of The Hague. A period in which more than 15,000 people living in The Hague lost their lives. Most, about 12,000 of them, Jewish residents. The war caused huge material damage too, the traces of which can still be seen today.
This article is an edited version of the speech given by Mayor Jozias van Aartsen on 1 March this year at the commemoration of the tragic bombing of the Bezuidenhout district of The Hague. The ceremony took place in the Christus Triomfatorkerk (Risen Christ Church) in the presence of British and other diplomats. Among those leading the oecumenical service was the Reverend Canon Dr David Stone of Coventry Cathedral, the church destroyed by the Luftwaffe in 1940 and which, in 1995, donated a Cross of Nails to the churches of the Bezuidenhout.
“The day before yesterday there was war
and yesterday too
and there is still war in my time
time that is not just mine”
Lines from a poem by Remco Campert, who was born and raised in The Hague. His father Jan Campert perished in the Neuengamme concentration camp. The actor, Bram van der Vlugt, who also grew up in this city, quoted this poem in a radio interview he gave a few years ago. During the programme he talked about the dramatic events experienced by his family during the Second World War. It was a distressing story which in many ways reflected the war years of The Hague. Bram van der Vlugt’s mother was Jewish and was murdered, along with her own mother and other family members. When the occupying forces cleared Scheveningen the Van der Vlugt family ended up in the Bezuidenhout. Along with many other families from Scheveningen and other areas of the city which had been cleared or even torn down. There in the Bezuidenhout, the young Bram then witnessed the terrifying bombing.
It was on 3rd March exactly seventy years ago that a large part of the beautiful Hague district of the Bezuidenhout, with its typical architecture and street patterns, was accidentally bombed by the Royal Air Force in an attempt to disable the destructive V2 rockets which the German occupying forces were firing from this area at Britain, causing death and destruction there. Owing to a compounding of errors the bombs landed instead on a densely populated residential area. More than 500 people lost their lives that day and in the days that followed. With another 400 missing, many of whom were never found. The bombing of the Bezuidenhout, together with the German air raid on Rotterdam and the allied bombing of Nijmegen – also a tragic mistake – were among the worst and most deadly air raids that the Netherlands suffered during the Second World War.
On that day 3300 homes were destroyed or severely damaged, along with 290 businesses, 64 offices, 5 churches, 15 schools and 8 hospitals. The bombing made 12,000 people homeless, many of them losing everything they had. The survivors took flight. As they did so they saw the most horrific sights, witnessing scenes of inferno. Someone recently said: “Every time I see a group of refugees on television today, I am again reminded of how I too had to flee on 3 March 1945.”
“The day before yesterday there was war
and yesterday too
and there is still war in my time
time that is not just mine”
For countless survivors the war never completely ended, however many years have passed since. The wounds inflicted on that terrible Saturday were simply too deep. The sorrow too great. On top of this, in the decades after the war little thought was given to the bombing. This was most certainly because it was an attack by our allies. Besides which, these were the years of reconstruction. Years of looking forward, not back.
More recently, however, the bombing has gained more notice rather than less, which is a good thing. Now as the group of people who experienced it first-hand is becoming smaller, the stories need to be handed down to the present generation and to future generations. And that is certainly happening. Books have been published and documentaries made in which the survivors tell their stories. There is a package for primary schools and recently an historic walk through the Bezuidenhout was organised. Photos with explanatory captions placed around the neighbourhood show just how much the appearance of the area was changed by the bombing. History can be found literally on the streets there.
You soon feel a sense of unease looking at pictures of the bombed Bezuidenhout: that was the day before yesterday, in 1945. But it is still going on today. In the cities of Syria that have been reduced to rubble, in the East Ukraine, and elsewhere in the world. It makes us realize all the more how fortunate we are to be able to live here in peace. And that we must continue to do everything in our power to banish such suffering from the world.
Or, to put it in the words of that great philosopher Baruch Spinoza, who spent his final years in The Hague, and whose fundamental ideas about peace and freedom have lost none of their power and relevance more than three centuries later. “Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.” A virtue which we in The Hague, the international city of peace and justice, will continue to strive for and promulgate.
