Commemorations of 45 people ‘experimentally’ gassed reveal dark moments in the Netherlands’ history
were deported and murdered, there is increasing attention on the collusion of the Dutch state in turning over lists of political “undesirables”.
For the past year, Jan Boxem and Steven Brandsma, related through their partners, have been campaigning for stumbling stones across theto mark the stories of the 45 Bernburg men. But they say they have hit their own stumbling block of cash, bureaucracy and conflicting ideas. “Last year Jan and I went to Germany to pay our debts to history,” said Brandsma. “Jan’s uncle was gassed there, something he only found out when he started to research him. Although his uncle was in Neuengamme camp and his cause of death was reported as serious illness, he was actually gassed in Bernburg … burned in an oven and his ashes dumped in a river in east Germany.
These stumbling stones – proliferating across Dutch streets – are both metaphors and memories. Van Basten Batenburg added: “Whenever my niece, who just turned four, sees one, she gets on her knees and wipes it free of dirt or leaves. They are a bit of light in the sidewalk which catches the soul of the people who are commemorated.”
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