Hollandsche Schouwburg

Lonely Planet review

Originally home to the director of Artis Zoo, this building became the Artis Schouwburg (Artis Theatre) in 1892. In WWII the Germans made it a detention centre for Jews awaiting deportation. After the war people felt it unseemly to reopen the site as a theatre; in 1961 it was demolished except for the facade and the area just behind it.

Some 60,000 to 80,000 Jews passed through here on their way to Westerbork transit camp in the east of the country, and from there to the death camps. Nowadays, a 10m-high memorial pylon constructed in their honour dominates a courtyard; the effect is wrenching in its simplicity. Along one of the lobby walls, glass panels are engraved with the names of all the Jewish families deported from the Netherlands. On the floor in front of the wall an inscription in Dutch and Hebrew translates as, 'Watch me like you watch the iris of your eye, and hide me under your wings from the evil people lurking around me.'

Upstairs is a small exhibit hall with photos and artefacts of Jewish life before and during the war (signage here is in Dutch only). The Hollandsche Schouwburg is part of the Joods Historisch Museum.