Flags at half mast as the Netherlands remembers the dead
The Netherlands will fall silent for two minutes at 8pm on Thursday as the country remembers the Dutch who died in World War II and in subsequent conflicts and peacekeeping missions.
Trains and cars will come to a halt and there are no take-offs and landings at Schiphol airport. Shops and supermarkets are required by law to close at 7pm, and bars and restaurants warn their clients that the music will stop for a short period of reflection. Football matches and large pop concerts are also temporarily brought to a halt.
The rule on May 4 is that flags are flown at half mast from 6am until sundown on government buildings as a token of respect but this will not be echoed around the countryside where numerous upside down flags dominate the landscape.
Since 2019 inverted tricolour flags, with the blue band at the top, have become a symbol of the farmers’ opposition to government’s plans for compulsory buyouts to reduce nitrogen pollution. Last-minute attempts by veterans and others to persuade protesting farmers to fly the flag the right side up as a sign of respect were said by radical farmers’ representatives to be ‘too much work’.
Ceremonies will take place throughout the day at war memorials and cemeteries nationwide. The great bell of the monument in the dunes of the Waalsdorpervlakte, where some 250 people were executed, will toll just after 8pm, concluding a silent march past the four wooden crosses which were put there in 1946 by fellow resistance fighters.
The main ceremony, at the Dam war memorial in the centre of Amsterdam, attracts thousands of people. King Willem-Alexander and queen Maxima will lay a wreath at the war memorial, along with survivors of WWII, members of the armed forces and family members of those who died.
Support for Remembrance Day remains high. As a national event, May 4 is ranked higher than King’s Day and major sports occasions, according to new research carried out by the Nationaal Comité 4 en 5 mei, which organises the commemorations,
On Friday, the Netherlands celebrates its liberation with festivals and parties nationwide.
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