7 - Three Times Dam Square: An Epilogue

Summary

ONE COULD ARGUE that the exhibit on clandestine literature in the Amsterdam City Museum in June 1945 was the first “monument” to the victims of the war. One of its rooms was reserved for those who had lost their lives for the sake of freedom of the press. Entering this room dedicated to the martyrs of resistance literature had almost sacral significance.

Another temporary monument to the victims of the war consisted of a colonnade that was erected in December 1947 on Dam Square, at the very heart of Amsterdam. On 4 May 1956, exactly eleven years after liberation, this colonnade was replaced by the National War Memorial. Twelve urns containing soil from each Dutch province as well as from Indonesia were sealed into the rear wall of the new monument in memory of the martyrs who had fallen for the fatherland in the Second World War. The urn containing Indonesian soil, however, provoked discussion. Members of the resistance were divided on the government's handling of the Indonesian crisis; while there was unanimity about the inclusion of war victims who had fallen in Asia, there were fears that the use of Indonesian soil might be interpreted as a colonialist attitude. Eventually a compromise was reached by renaming the urn “a symbol of self-sacrifice for peace and justice” instead of “a symbol of solidarity between all territories united in freedom under the protection of the Queen.” Thanks to this compromise, national unity in the commemoration of the Second World War prevailed. To avoid further discussions, the niche that originally had been prepared for an urn with soil from Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles remained empty.