Laser projectors again used to show racist, extremist messages in Amsterdam
A new video was shared in Telegram groups showing another incident of a laser projector used to show either racist or antisemitic slogans on the side of a building in the Netherlands from some distance away. The latest incident happened early Tuesday morning when the message, "Love And Make White Babies," was projected in English on the Hemweg power station in Amsterdam's Westelijke Havengebied district, according to Parool.
Additionally, the phrase, "RIP Dresden," was also projected on the building. The newspaper noted that it February 14 marked the 78th anniversary of the Allied bombing campaign of Dresden, Germany. About 1,300 bombers from both the United States Air Force and the British Royal Air Force dropped thousands of bombs and explosives on the city, levelling over six square kilometers of the Dresden city center, and killing as many as 25,000 people in four separate raids from February 13-15, 1945.
The operator of the power plant, Vattenfall, would not confirm the incident to Parool. A spokesperson for the Swedish energy company said it, "emphatically distances itself from this disfigured message that is linked online to our (decommissioned) power station." The spokesperson also said, "We have informed the police about this, and will make additional checks ourselves so this does not happen again. If it was projected, it looks like it was done from the highway, so from a place outside our terrain."
The Amsterdam police have not released a statement about the matter.
The incident is at least the fourth known case where a laser projector was used to display controversial text from extreme right-wing white nationalists. One high profile incident was publicized last week when videos appeared of a projection on the Anne Frank House. In that video, a message intended to spread a conspiracy theory to invalidate the authenticity of Anne Frank's diary was displayed. The theory claims the diary was written with a ballpoint pen, which had not become popular until after World War II. The conspiracy theory is often used to try and demonstrate that the Holocaust either did not happen, or was exaggerated.
Amsterdam's mayor, Femke Halsema, said the incident was “pure anti-Semitism” and “an attack on Anne Frank’s legacy.” She added that it was, “Deeply cowardly and painful, for the survivors, the living relatives of the victims of the Holocaust, the entire Jewish community, and everyone who knows where hatred, racism, and intolerance lead.”
Additionally, messages linked to Neo-Nazi groups in the United States and the White Lives Matter movements were also projected on the Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam during the New Year's Eve celebration there. That incident was shown live during a broadcast from the bridge.
A less publicized incident took place before New Year's Eve in Venlo, when similar messages were shown on several buildings in that city.
