Lord Pickles visited the Netherlands from 21 to 23 January 2025 to take part in commemoration events in the lead up to International Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January, remembering the 6 million Jewish men, women and children and other groups who lost their lives during the Holocaust.
He also hosted meetings with representatives from the Dutch government and Dutch society who are focused on tackling antisemitism today.
In his capacity as UK Special Envoy for Post-Holocaust issues and current Chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, Lord Pickles took part in the first evening of the ‘Namen Lezen’ or ‘Reading of Names’ at Camp Westerbork.
From 22 to 27 January, over 100,000 names of the Jews, Sinta and Roma who were transited through Westerbork before being murdered at concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Sobibor were read out.
Lord Pickles also attended the reopening of Herinneringscentrum (Memorial Centre) Apeldoornsche Bosch, hearing from a relative of one staff member of the former Jewish psychiatric institution, who was arrested and deported to Auschwitz on the night of 21 to 22 January 1943.
Almost 1,400 residents and staff members were deported on that evening and the days that followed. None survived. Only a small number of residents and staff members who had fled the night before managed to survive the war.
In Amsterdam, Lord Pickles visited the National Holocaust Museum. He met the General Director of the Jewish Museum Quarter, Emile Schrijver and recorded a conversation for the British Embassy in The Hague’s Remembering Together podcast.
Together they reflected on the history of the Holocaust in the Netherlands and how it is remembered, as well as the role of the Chair of the IHRA Presidency.
Lord Pickles also had moving meetings with representatives of the Jewish Community in Amsterdam and heard from the Dutch National Coordinator for Tackling Antisemitism, Eddo Verdoner, about the Dutch government’s multi-year antisemitism strategy which was published in 2024.
Lord Pickles said:
It was an honour to visit the Netherlands this month as the country remembers and honours the victims of the Holocaust in the Netherlands and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
I heard about the devastation caused by the Holocaust in the Netherlands, where only 35,000 of the 140,000 strong Jewish community (ie less than 25%) survived the war, and what is happening today to ensure the horrors of the Holocaust are not forgotten.
