UpdateThe commemoration of death in the Valkenberg in Breda has been disrupted by an unknown man.
As the two minutes of silence began, he came to the meeting screaming and aggressive. There he was soon knocked to the ground and taken away. After that, the ceremony continued.
The man was taken to the police station. He appeared to be stunned. He has received an area ban and several fines.
“It is very sad what has happened,” says Carel Hubert, chairman of the 4 May Remembrance Day Breda foundation. “I have been doing this work for ten years and I have never experienced anything like this. Fortunately, the man was knocked out pretty quickly. But we are completely blown away that something like this is happening.”
Hubert does not think that after this incident, something should suddenly change in the way in which the Donden commemoration takes place in Breda: ,,Of course you ask yourself: what should we expect? But we have to keep calm and I am a positive person. So I don’t think we should suddenly approach the commemoration differently.”
Mayor Paul Depla thinks so too. “We should not adjust a tradition that has been going on in harmony for almost eighty years on the basis of an incident because a drunk man without motive disrupts the ceremony,” says the mayor.
Silence and respect
That does not alter the fact that Depla finds it ‘very annoying and sad that a moment of silence and respect’ is disrupted in such a brutal way. “I saw that there were people who were very shocked by what happened,” said the mayor. “But I also saw anger and disappointment. Those feelings prevailed.”
In the end, the mayor is happy that action was taken quickly. “To be honest, I am also curious about the motives that incite such a man to take such an unnecessary action,” said the mayor.
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