Lecture at Camp Westerbork canceled over threat

A lecture scheduled at the Camp Westerbork Remembrance Center this weekend has been canceled due to threats to one of the speakers. Wahhab Hassoo, activist and director of the NL Helpt Yazidis foundation, reports on X that the lecture has been scrapped “due to the real threats to me as a person and to my family.” A spokesperson for the center confirmed to RTV Drenthe that the lecture wouldn’t happen.

Hassoo was scheduled to speak on the theme of freedom together with a Holocaust survivor on Sunday. The two often give lectures at schools throughout the Netherlands. He called it “disappointing” that the lecture in Westerbork couldn’t take place on Sunday. “I never thought I would experience this in the Netherlands, a painful reality. But it has to be that way now.”

Hassoo did not say what kind of threats he received. The center’s spokesperson also did not want to comment on this. The spokesperson did say that these are “personal threats” and that the center finds it “very annoying” that the lecture has been canceled. It happened “in consultation,” the spokesperson told the local broadcaster.

Hassoo fled with his family from Iraq to the Netherlands at the age of 17, according to the website of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU), where he went to study. Yazidis, a religious and ethnic Kurdish minority, were victims of genocide under the terrorist organization ISIS. Hassoo told Trouw earlier this year that he feels a great connection with the Jews. “They also know what it’s like not to be allowed to exist. Some say that I should not compare ISIS with the Nazis, that it is too political, but I see many similarities,” he said.