Free as a bird, 4th of may remembrance day

Rotterdam Daily Photo: Free as a bird, 4th of may remembrance day
Rotterdam Daily Photo: Free as a bird, 4th of may remembrance day

Its the 4th of may remembrance day here in the Netherlands. Every year at 8 pm on 4 May, the Dutch commemorate civilians and soldiers who have died in the Kingdom of the Netherlands or elsewhere in the world since the outbreak of the Second World War, both in war situations and in peacekeeping missions, with two minutes of silence.

They died for our freedom today, hence the photo of the birds here on our balcony, free as a bird …

Stolpersteine, stumble stones, Jewish victims of WWII remembered

About 300 of these stones – Stolpersteine or stumble stones, a project of the German artist Gunter Demnig – are placed in the pavement in front of the houses where the Jewish victims used to live in Rotterdam. Most of these victims were deported to camps as Auschwitz, Sobibor, Bergen-Belsen or Mauthausen. I photographed these stones in the pavement of the Goudsesingel, not far from where I live.

P.S. About 61.000 of these stones spread over 22 countries are placed. All bear the names of Jewish victims. Here you can find a list of the stones in Rotterdam >>