Hollandsche Schouwburg and the National Holocaust Museum
Why is it significant?
On one side of the street stands the facade of a theatre, with only a garden and a memorial behind it. On the other side, a tall brick school building. Between them runs the tram line. Remember the tram. The Hollandsche Schouwburg opened in 1892 and was one of the city's favourite theatres.
Key Facts
| Place | Hollandsche Schouwburg and the National Holocaust Museum |
|---|---|
| Address | Plantage Middenlaan 24, 1018 DE Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.36660, 4.91110 |
| Part of Walk | Mokum's Lost Quarter: The Jewish Heart of Amsterdam and the Plantage |
| Generated | Generated |
On one side of the street stands the facade of a theatre, with only a garden and a memorial behind it. On the other side, a tall brick school building. Between them runs the tram line. Remember the tram.
The Hollandsche Schouwburg opened in 1892 and was one of the city's favourite theatres. In 1941 the occupiers turned it into the Joodsche Schouwburg, where only Jewish artists could perform for Jewish audiences. Then, from the summer of 1942, it became the assembly point for deportation. Families were summoned or dragged here, held for days in the dark auditorium, and then taken to trains for Westerbork. Tens of thousands of people passed through this building. Today the wall inside carries the family names of the Jews of the Netherlands who were murdered.
Small children were separated from their parents and held in a crèche across the road. And there an extraordinary rescue began. Walter Süskind, a German Jew who worked at the theatre, the crèche director Henriëtte Pimentel, and Johan van Hulst, head of the teacher training college next door, worked together to smuggle children out. Records were altered, names left off lists, and children were passed over the fence into the college garden, or carried away in bags and baskets... often at the moment a passing tram blocked the guards' view.
Hundreds of children were saved this way, perhaps around six hundred, and hidden with families across the country. Henriëtte Pimentel was murdered in Auschwitz, and Süskind died in the camps. Johan van Hulst survived, was honoured as Righteous Among the Nations, and lived to the age of 107.
In March 2024 the National Holocaust Museum opened, in that same teacher training college, together with the theatre memorial across the road. Now walk along the Plantage Kerklaan to the building on the corner, home to the Resistance Museum.