Hollandse Schouwburg (Holland Theater)

Across the street from the carefree Artis Royal Zoo is a far more somber, and vital, site: the Hollandse Schouwburg (Holland Theater), which by all appearances of its classical facade - not to mention its very name - seems like a typical, if particularly beautiful, theater. Indeed, until the year 1940, the Hollandse Schouwburg was a theater that welcomed all comers to its successful productions; the German occupation of the Netherlands, however, would transform the venue in a way from which it would never recover.

In 1941, German forces in Amsterdam renamed the theater to the "Joodse Schouwburg" (Jewish Theater) in its bid to segregate the city's population into Jews and non-Jews; only Jewish performers were thus allowed to entertain an all-Jewish audience at the theater. This was part of a more widespread trend in which Jews were marshaled into their own restaurants, parks, cafes and other public places, separate from the rest of the population.

But the fate of the theater and the Jewish community around it would soon worsen. With its central location in the middle of Amsterdam's former Jewish Quarter, the German occupation had deemed the theater an ideal spot to assemble Jewish Amsterdammers for deportation, first to Westerbork - a transit camp in the northeastern Netherlands - and onward to German concentration camps. Few who were deported survived; however, the then-manager of the Hollandse Schouwburg, Walter Süskind, was able to doctor the paperwork of some 600 children who were collected in a nursery across from the theater.

The children's names were removed from the theater's records, and the children themselves placed in safer havens to avoid discovery and deportation.

The lower level of the Hollandse Schouwburg now contains a memorial to Dutch Holocaust victims, a vast wall with 6,700 family names that stand for the 104,000 Dutch Jews that were murdered. The upper level is dedicated to the history of the theater and of Jewish persecution in World War II-era Netherlands; here, visitors can trace the theater's metamorphosis from a place of fun and entertainment into a deportation center, from which most of Amsterdam's substantial Jewish community would never return.

Hollandse Schouwburg Visitor Information:

Hollandse Schouwburg Location
Plantage Middenlaan 24
Directions: From Amsterdam Central Station, take tram 9 (direction: Diemen (Sniep)) to the Plantage Kerklaan stop; the theater is just a few paces from the tram stop.

Opening Times