My great-grandfather died in Mauthausen, today I fly my Palestinian flag at half-mast – Joop

Today

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In recent weeks, and still am, I have been dreading the national commemoration of the dead like a mountain. In a year in which this commemoration is possibly more important than ever before, it is crystal clear to me that I cannot under any circumstances be part of a national commemoration in which our current government leaders play an essential role, after having committed ethnic cleansing over the past 7 months. /large-scale revenge/genocide/serious war crimes (choose the word you are most comfortable with) in Gaza as self-defense by their Israeli ally.

The importance I attach to May 4 partly has to do with my own family history. My great-grandfather, Henk Zanoli, was the son of an immigrant from the poorest part of Europe at the time, Ticino, Switzerland. In search of a better life, his father moved to the Netherlands at the end of the nineteenth century. A guest worker before that was a concept. Henk grew up in difficult socio-economic circumstances, but eventually managed to work his way up to become a legal advisor. He committed himself to the most vulnerable in society. He was a self-proclaimed anarcho-syndicalist. A second-generation immigrant with far-left sympathies. A nuisance and, in the perception of the established order, a danger to that order.

He was arrested in May 1941 on the initiative of the Dutch police and handed over to the Germans. He finally died in January 1945 in Mauthausen. He left behind a wife and 6 children. During those war years, despite the family’s ‘reputation’, his wife took in a Jewish boy, Elchanan Pinto, renamed Piet during the period when he lived with my great-grandmother. The entire family was now active in the resistance. As a result, my great-grandmother’s daughter lost her husband who was arrested and executed for his resistance work. Her eldest son lost his Jewish fiancée. A background that I think makes clear why commemorating the horrors of the Second World War is of personal importance to me and my family.

My great-grandmother and great-uncle Henk (named after his father) received a medal from the Yad Vashem museum in 2011 for saving Elchanan. My great-uncle decided to return the medal in 2014, after 6 relatives of my children were killed in Gaza by an Israeli bombardment. He had long had serious doubts about the path taken by the Israeli state. But when four generations later his own in-laws were affected, he wanted to take action. He died in 2015 and did not have to experience what is currently happening in Gaza. Since October 7, another 28 family members of my children have been erased by the ‘self-defense actions’ and the restoration of ‘deterrence’ (as Prime Minister Rutte speaks about this).

Back to May 4 and the political reality of this moment. In his recent speech in Hungary, the leader of the Netherlands’ largest political party in Parliament mentioned two major current dangers; immigration and ‘wokeism’. I immediately thought of my deported great-grandfather. A second generation immigrant and a believer in a belief that could be categorized as the 1930s/40s version of ‘wokeism’. And I thought about how, as a direct consequence of that, on the initiative of the Dutch authorities, he was arrested and taken away by the Nazis.

On May 4, during the commemoration of death, a representative of Wilders’ party will be standing prominently on Dam Square. Next to him are the government representatives who in recent months have taken the conscious risk of eventually having to take responsibility for complicity in genocide. It is a company and therefore an occasion that I have no choice but to avoid with my distant and recent family history in mind. Despite the crucial importance of collective commemoration at this time.

In recent weeks I have therefore been thinking about organizing an alternative national commemoration. There was already a logo and consideration was given to how to organize this in concrete terms. Ultimately I gave up. I decided I didn’t have the mental space for it. I’ll stay home on May 4. I fly my Palestinian flag at half-mast and think of my great-grandfather, his family, the Jewish boy they took in and the 34 relatives of my children who were murdered in Gaza. I think about the fact that never again is never again for everyone. Or should be. I think of the example of my great-grandfather becoming unwanted and how his struggle and sacrifice is now more relevant than ever before.