Public welcome at homes of WWII resistance fighters and Jewish people this week

From Saturday, houses in 18 cities can be visited where Jews or members of the resistance lived and worked before, during and just after the Second World War. Stories of the residents are shared in the houses, which look back on the resistance and Jewish life during the war. The memorial program Open Jewish Houses - Houses of Resistance will last until May 5.

In Winterswijk, for example, the story of the Jewish boy Dicky Boekebinder will be told on April 30 in a house on the Binnenboomweg. As a 6-year-old, Dicky hid with the family of Gert Jan Bollen's grandparents in Winterswijk. Dicky and Gert Jan were the same age at the time, and Gert Jan will tell about their time together during the war.

At the Stationsweg in The Hague, historian and journalist Peter Paul de Baar will talk about the Jewish politician Alida de Jong on May 4. She was a costume seamstress, later became a trade union official and a member of parliament for the SDAP, where she fought for women's rights. In 1943 she was murdered in the Sobibor extermination camp.

The open houses can be visited in Amsterdam, Assen, Bergen op Zoom, Borculo, The Hague, Deventer, Emmen, Gorinchem, Gouda, Groningen, Haarlem, Hoorn, Nijmegen, Steenwijk, Utrecht, Wageningen, Winterswijk, and Zaanstad. More details about the commemoration program can be found on the website of the Jewish Cultural Quarter.