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The Netherlands

Princess Margriet and Prof Van Vollenhoven remember Jewish healthcare facility deportations

margriet

Princess Margriet of the Netherlands and her husband, Professor Pieter van Vollenhoven attended the commemoration event for the evacuation and deportation of patients from the Het Apeldoornsche Bosch psychiatric hospital. 

On Monday, 23 January, Princess Margriet and her husband arrived at De Prinsehof primary school in Apeldoorn, where the ceremony was held.

Before going inside, the couple stopped to listen to all the names of the victims of the structure being read by relatives, students and other people involved in the project. 

Princess Margriet and Prof Van Vollenhoven then reached the commemorative monument to lay a single long-stem cream rose each before the memorial was concluded, and the couple made their way back to their residence. 

During the night between the 21st and the 22nd of January 1943, Het Apeldoornsche Bosch Jewish Psychiatric Hospital was forcibly evacuated, and all of its more than 1400 patients and staff members were deported to either Auschwitz or Westerbork concentration camps. It is estimated that only a few of those who went through the latter survived. 

The Het Apeldoornsche Bosch Jewish Psychiatric Hospital was founded in 1909 and had structures devoted to relaxation, occupational therapy, sports and leisure. The facility also housed a synagogue, and the whole complex observed Jewish holidays.

The memorial was held to commemorate the event, which falls close to World Holocaust Day on 27 January. 

The occasion is also special for Princess Margriet; due to the overtaking of the country by the Nazis, the Dutch Royal Family fled to Canada, where the Princess was born. She has since been one of the most loyal royal figures in the fight for the commemoration of the Holocaust and against antisemitism.