WW II Hero Honored with Amsterdam Bridge Name

When in Amsterdam....look at the names on our bridges. Amsterdam has over 2000 bridges. Many have been named after prominent people from Amsterdam.

On September 2, 2012, Bridge 234 was named the Pieter Meerburg Bridge. This bridge is located on the Nieuwe Keizesgracht near the Portuguese Synagogue and the Jewish Historic Museum.

Pieter Meerburg

Pieter Meerburg is credited with saving the lives of 350 Amsterdam children during the Nazi occupation. Meerburg was a student in Amsterdam during the Second World War. He organized Amsterdam Jewish children to be smuggled to safety and adopt a new identity.

The organization Pieter led was called the Amsterdam Student Group. Composed entirely of volunteers, the students, men and women, would pretend the Jewish babies were their own. They were assisted by an Amsterdam pediatrician Dr. Fiedeldij Dop. The doctor would cycle around to families whom were close to deportation and ask them entrust their infants to Meerburg.

When demand exceeded the number of safe houses Meerburg talked local business owners into providing sanctuary for the young Amsterdammers.

Bridge 234 now the Meerburg Bridge

Meerburg was titled "Righteous Among Nations" by the Israel association for Holocaust Remembrance in 1974. Pieter Meeburg died in 2010.

When in Amsterdam....look at our bridge names. There is a story at every bridge.

Amsterdam City Archive remembers murdered Jewish Children in Exhibition

When in Amsterdam.....remember Mokum. Amsterdam City Archives remember the Children of the Netherlands who were deported and murdered in the Second World War because they were Jewish, Roma and Sinti. The exhibition titled Memoriam is on display in the foyer and exhibition room of  the Bazel building, Amsterdam City Archive.

The exhibition has three parts and is an extention of the book In Memoriam, de gedeporteerde en vermoorde Joodse, Roma en Sinti kinderen, 1942-1945. One part is a glass panel. The panel lists the names of the 15 000 children who were deported by the Nazi occupying forces of the Netherlands between 1942-45.

Memoriam Exhibition Amsterdam City Archive

The centre piece of the exhibition is a 70 meter board. The board is broken in four and is covered in photos and details of the 2 900 Dutch Jewish children who were transported to Nazi run death camps. Photo, name, address, place of birth and place of death are simply displayed.

The third part of the exhibition is the story of 15 of the children who were deported and murdered under Nazi occupation in Amsterdam.

To bring you to them When In Amsterdam went to the address to see where Dolfje and Leo use to live in Amsterdam.

Prinsengracht 862 Dolfje's old home

Nieuwe Hoogstraat 27-29 - Leo's old home

The Memoriam exhibition is similar to an awareness campaign by Amsterdam's daily newspaper Het Parool for May 4 Remembrance Day activities in 2011. The newspaper sent posters to the addresses of former Jewish residences in Amsterdam. The campaign showed in pre-war Amsterdam it was normal to have a Jewish neighbor.

The exhibition's impact is its simplicity and subjects. History is not normally told by children and the marginalized. War is masculine and winners write the events. Children's stories are not normally central. Memoriam, like the Het Parool campaign, presents humanity front and center through innocent youngsters. Their story though short is important shape constructions of remembrance of human tragedy. The Memoriam exhibition  runs 10 February to 20 May 2012. Click link for more information.

Mokum is a slang word for central Amsterdam. The Yiddish word translates as 'place' or 'safe haven' and is derived from the Hebrew word 'makum' meaning 'place'.

Related post Remembrance Day May 4

When in Amsterdam....respect.