At the beginning of Pride Amsterdam, a few stolpersteine are placed in the capital for Jewish gay and lesbian war victims and resistance fighters who were murdered by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. This is reported by the COC, the Dutch interest group for the LGBTI community. COC chairman Astrid Oosenbrug:
“On the eve of our seventy-five anniversary, we also reflect on where we come from, the dark war years after which the COC was founded. We pay tribute to the people who were persecuted and killed for what they did and who they were: Jewish, resistance fighter and lesbian or gay. So that we will never forget.”
COC Netherlands and historian Judith Schuyf took the initiative for the placement of a total of nine Stolpersteine prior to Pride Amsterdam. One of the resistance fighters who gets a stolpersteine is Karel Pekelharing, who was executed on June 10, 1944 in the dunes near Overveen. Pekelharing belonged, among other things, to the group that raided the detention center at the Weteringsschans in Amsterdam in order to liberate members of the resistance. His stolperstein is placed on the Amsterdam Rombout Hogerbeetsstraat, where he was in hiding until shortly before his death.
Furthermore, stolpersteine are placed for Mina Sluijter (murdered in Auschwitz because of her sexual orientation and Jewish background), Samuel Hoepelman (arrested because he had committed ‘several times against natural fornication’ and murdered in Sobibor), Samuel Lam (murdered in Auschwitz in 1942 because he was Jewish, gay, and communist), Isaäc Walvisch (killed in Auschwitz in 1942 because he was Jewish and gay), Isaäc Metzelaar (killed in Auschwitz in 1942 because he was Jewish and gay), Sjoerd Bakker (shot in 1943 in the dunes near Overveen as a homosexual resistance member). Stones are also placed for the well-known homosexual resistance fighters Willem Arondéus (who was shot in the dunes near Overveen in July 1943) and Frida Belinfante. The latter went into hiding after an attack on the population register in which she was involved, and fled to Switzerland. Belinfante was the only one of the persons whom the COC commemorates with Stolpersteine that survived the war.
The stones for Pekelharing, Sluyter, Hoepelman and Arondéus will be placed today, the other five stones at a later date.
The stolpersteine (Stilpersteine) are meant to make history live on by naming the victims. The memorial stones are a project by the German artist Gunter Demnig. The stones measure 10x10x10 centimeters and are covered with a bronze-coloured metal plate on which the name and date of birth of the victim are chiseled as well as the date and place of deportation and death. There are now about 60,000 stones in Europe.
