This will be the most complex Remembrance Day in years, thinks Jaïr Stranders. He is co-founder and artistic director of Theater Na de Dam, which organizes more than 130 theater performances about the Second World War and the Holocaust every year on May 4 – after the ceremony on Dam Square. Theater Na de Dam was founded in 2010 after a question from then mayor Job Cohen about the future of commemoration in Amsterdam, with young generations who are increasingly less aware of why and what we commemorate. “You can very well tell stories about that time in the theater, but those stories are being told now. This creates a bridge between the present and the past,” says Stranders.
Cohen’s question at the time has now been sharpened by the war between Israel and Hamas, which has led to major polarization in the Netherlands. Tension has now risen so high around May 4 that Amsterdam decided to halve the number of participants on Dam Square, register and search, and to take demonstrations into account everywhere. And chairman André van Es of the Amsterdam 4 and 5 May committee agreed last month Het Parool that during Remembrance Day there should also be room for “other experiences of war and oppression”.
Has Theater Na de Dam considered broadening the theme of May 4 this year?
“No. To begin with: commemoration is complex. Job Cohen’s question about the future of commemoration has spawned initiatives to bring the story of the war back to the city, such as open houses. There are now also the freedom meals on May 5. On Liberation Day you can place the themes of war, commemoration and freedom in a more current context. But we believe that on May 4 you should first relate to the past, to the period of the Second World War and the Holocaust.
“You can always commemorate current deaths, and that has been happening in recent months with marches and meetings. But May 4 has a very clear framework, and if you start commemorating current deaths at that moment, you immediately end up in the conflict points of current wars, then there is nothing that can bring us together.”
Isn’t the commemoration becoming less and less relevant?
“That’s not necessary. Commemoration is about the past, but it must have meaning for the present, because otherwise why would you commemorate?
“We see May 4 as a moment in the year when you look together: how are we doing as a society. And we do this in the light of that history. It forms an anchor in time, a wall in the past against which you bounce the questions of the present. Then they come back and you can look more closely at how we are doing now.”
The stories of all those 130 theater performances are exclusively about the Second World War, right?
“The subject of the performances is the Second World War, so there is no performance that is primarily about the war in Ukraine or Gaza. But the meaning and effect of those stories can be about Gaza, about Ukraine, and about exclusion. The theater is very suitable for applying those layers.
“Like every year, Carré features a new piece written for us, this year a monologue by Nathan Vecht. In it, in 2030, a director, played by Malou Gorter, is heard under oath about how the Netherlands has dealt with the memory of the Second World War. That is about how sensitive the war and its commemoration are: which stories are and are not told, why is that, what does ‘Never again’ mean at a time when several wars are raging, and who do those words actually apply to? At one point, Gorter talks about the period in which ‘the war in the Middle East flared up again’, and the problems that caused – and everyone knows that it is about the war in Gaza.”
All in all, you are closely following the line of national commemoration. Isn’t it better suited to theatre, to art as a pressure valve, to do what is not possible during the national commemoration?
“I think we do that. On Dam Square, 15 years ago, it was considered impossible to invite a German ambassador, for example, while we did focus on perpetrators. We think that is important. Abel Herzberg once gave a speech at a commemoration, after which a woman asked: how do we ensure that what happened to us does not happen to our children? He replied: that is not the right question, the question is how do we ensure that our children do not do what happened to us.
“We find it much more interesting to discuss difficult, painful, sensitive topics such as perpetrators, and that can also be done in the theater, more than in two minutes of silence or in a speech.”
Don’t the especially younger makers want to respond more sharply to current events?
“Sometimes. Theater Na de Dam includes 46 youth performances about stories from the war, in which almost four hundred young people participate. In 2016 there was the refugee crisis, and some makers felt that performances should be about that. The fact that their feelings are completely connected to current events is perfect, which means that they are observant citizens who want to take responsibility. Then we encourage them not to think either/or, but to bounce current stories against the wall of history. And that always works.
“For example, there was a performance in Westerbork in which the young people played Jewish refugees, with coats and suitcases, who took us with them. We followed them on the forest path. A girl wearing a headscarf turned around and talked about her flight from Aleppo in half a minute – you heard that she had not spoken Dutch for long. The performance was then all about the Jewish refugees from Germany who ended up in Westerbork.
“At the end of the performance, the young people walked back the same way, now without coats and suitcases. The girl turned around, said that her family had now found a house in Belgium and thanked the Netherlands for the warm welcome. Two sentences, everything was complete. The entire performance was about then, but had significance for today. And theater can do that, applying different layers through imagination. But you have to do that smartly. It is always a puzzle, sometimes it is more accurate than the other.”
What would you say to Dutch people who find a commemoration irrelevant or artificial if the stories of the past are the fixed starting point?
“I would say to those people: we fully recognize your pain, outrage and anger. And then say: what do we do with that? And then you have the May 4 commemoration in this country. That is precisely a moment when we can talk to each other about these types of topics. About why you feel this way. About why there is discrimination, why groups of people are dehumanized, about what moral choices this presents us with and about who shows moral leadership. That is what it should be about on May 4.”
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The Second World War comes ‘to life’ in youth performances by Theater na de Dam
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