Ceremonies for the Dutch victims of World War II are taking place all over the country on Wednesday as the Netherlands remembers its war dead.

Rotterdam’s mayor Ahmed Aboutelab will give this year’s May 4 speech in the Dutch capital, which will be broadcast live on television.

This evening king Willem-Alexander and queen Máxima will lay wreaths at the war memorial on Amsterdam’s city centre Dam square. After the wreath-laying, the bells will toll for two minutes silence. This takes place nationwide at 20.00 every year.

Public transport stops running during the two minute break and there are no take-offs and landings at Schiphol airport. Telecoms firms have also urged people to switch off their mobile phones.

This afternoon prime minister Mark Rutte is attending a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the war graves foundation at the Loenen cemetery, where the bodies of Dutch soldiers killed in peace-keeping operations are also buried.

Criticism

The dead remembered on May 4 are the victims of World War II, subsequent wars and peace-keeping campaigns, but every year there are calls for change.

In 2012, the event committee cancelled a poetry reading by a 15-year-old boy at the national war memorial in Amsterdam who wrote about his uncle who had joined the SS. In 2013, there were calls for German soldiers to be remembered as well.

This year a group of young activists have launched a social media campaign calling for a change to the way May 4 is celebrated. ‘May 4 has no point while we allow the rise of fascism and hatred of Muslims to continue unchecked,’ Christa Noella said on Facebook.

Until 1961, the ceremony focused on World War II victims but was then expanded to cover people who died in the Dutch-Indonesia conflict and on peace-keeping missions in Lebanon, Bosnia and Afghanistan.

On Thursday, the Netherlands celebrates Liberation Day, with concerts and other events all over the country, in what is expected to be one of the hottest days of the year so far.