Remembrance site Waalsdorpervlakte

This site was used by the Germans in the Second World War to shoot prisoners. After the war it became a remembrance site and every year on Remembrance Day (May 4 in the Netherlands) the dead are remembered. For years this was also broadcast on national television, without commentary and just with the sound of the large bell. No grandstanding, just ordinary people.

In recent years national television shows the remembrance ceremony on the Dam in Amsterdam. Dignitaries such as the Queen, politicians and the military high-rank look solemn and lay wreaths. The organizing committee tries to put in something modern, to make the remembrance more "relevant". Last year they tried to commemorate the Dutch people who enlisted in the Waffen SS too, by means of a "poem" of a young man who great-uncle was a member of the Waffen SS. His parents named him after this great-uncle.

It is not all doom and gloom: in 2010 a panic broke out in the crowd when somebody shouted "bomb". All the dignatories, including the Queen and Crown Prince, fled in great fear. Fleeing at a commemoration of people who didn't flee and weren't afraid. Wearing a fancy uniform doesn't make you brave.