The planned walking route from the Westerbork Memorial Centre in Drenthe to Groningen during the Night for the Refugee on 15 June has been called off due to a number of threats addressed to Westerbork.
Translation by Traci White
According to Dagblad van het Noorden, the decision was made to call off the Westerbork-Groningen route, which is one of several on the annual night, by the Refugee Foundation and the Westerbork Memorial Centre staff. The organisers say that the memorial centre has been the target of ongoing threats, intimidation and insults.
Camp Westerbork originally opened in 1939 as a central camp for Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Germany and became a deportation camp under Nazi rule in 1940. When the Westerbork-Groningen route was announced several months ago, representatives of the Jewish community in Amsterdam objected on the grounds that the event was co-opting the memory of the Holocaust for another cause.
The charitable Night for the Refugee has been held since 2010 to raise money to help refugees, and features a number of different walking routes across the Netherlands each year. The Westerbork-Groningen route was set to be a new addition this year, but now that is has been cancelled, the 400 people who had signed up for the sponsored walk can take part in one of the four other participating cities: Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Utrecht or Nijmegen.
Photo source: Wikipedia
