More attention to safety during Remembrance Day ceremonies today

There will be gatherings and ceremonies throughout the Netherlands on Saturday in connection with Remembrance Day. At 8 p.m. there will be a two-minute moment of silence to commemorate those who have died during wars and peacekeeping missions since the start of World War II.

This year, additional security measures are in place at the National Remembrance Day ceremony held annually on Dam Square in Amsterdam. The measures were put in place both to reduce the risk disruptions, and also to minimize the possibility that protests will interrupt the solemn event.

A ticketing and reservation system was put in use for Saturday's memorial, the number of people allowed in to the Dam Square area has been reduced compared to previous years, and all attendees can be searched upon arrival.

Additional security measures have also been implemented for the commemoration at the Nationaal Ereveld in Loenen, the honorary cemetary in Gelderland where about 4,000 Dutch war victims are buried. The commemoration there was scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m., but the additional security measures were not revealed.

Both houses of Dutch Parliament, the Eerste Kamer and Tweede Kamer, hold their own annual commemoration for the country's victims of war on May 4, with the Erelijst van Gevallenen. The document contains the names of nearly 18,000 soldiers, officers and resistance fighters who died during the war.

Caretaker Prime Minister Mark Rutte and State Secretary Maarten van Ooijen for public health policy will also lay a wreath there, on behalf of the Rijksministerraad, the Kingdom Council of Ministers including government officials from the Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten.

The military's national commemoration will take place at the Grebbeberg Military Cemetery in Rhenen. Princess Margriet, Pieter van Vollenhoven and caretaker Defense State Secretary Christophe van der Maat will be among those in attendance. Remembrance ceremonies will also take place in the former concentration camps of Amersfoort, Westerbork and Vught.

The annual commemoration on the Waalsdorpervlakte near Wassenaar will air live on RTL 4, and NOS will broadcast the National Commemoration on Dam Square on NPO 1. King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima will lay the first wreath there, and Mayor Femke Halsema gives a speech.

Bert Woudstra, a 92-year-old Jewish former Scout, will also take part in the ceremony. The Scouts were a banned group in the Netherlands during the War because of their refusal to side with the occupying forces, the NSB, and the NSB's youth wing.

He will lay the wreath in honor of the Jews, Roma and Sinti who were murdered during the Second World War. On May 16, it will be exactly eighty years ago that a major raid took place on the Roma and Sinti. Preceding the ceremony on Dam Square is the May 4 lecture in the Nieuwe Kerk, delivered this year by author Dido Michielsen.

At the Internationaal Homomonument in The Hague, two so-called "Pink Resistance Fighters," Frieda Belinfante and Willem Arondéus, will be given extra attention this year, the organization announced last week. There will also be a commemoration especially for children in Madurodam. At the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam, the athletes who died in the Second World War are also being commemorated.