Learn how ingenious Dutch citizens who stood by Europe’s persecuted Jewish population outsmarted their German invaders during World War II.
Visit the fascinating Dutch Resistance Museum (Verzetsmuseum) for a gripping journey back in time. Through videos, documents, photographs and sound fragments you will learn how the events surrounding the Holocaust of the 1940s still resonate in the Dutch society of today.
The museum has it roots in an exhibit that honored the Dutch resistance movement of World War II. In 1999, the exhibit was relocated to a former Jewish cultural center and synagogue, to become the “Verzetsmuseum” you can visit today. A small section of the museum also deals with the period when the overseas colony of the Dutch East Indies was occupied by Japan from 1942 to 1945.
Browse the photo walls of the museum and play the multimedia exhibits. The permanent exhibit, presented in Dutch and in English, tells a chronological story from about 1933, when Hitler came to power, to 1950.
As you explore the interactive museum, you will be faced with some of the dilemmas the people of the Netherlands faced between 1940 and 1945. Hitler’s Nazi army, on a mission to eradicate the Jewish population, had soon occupied much of Europe. While thousands of Dutch citizens risked their own lives to undermine the Nazis, millions remained passive due to ignorance, fear or indifference. Others collaborated with the German invaders, for personal gain or out of political conviction.
Listen and watch the locals speak as they reflect on the impossible choices they all had to make during the war. Find out how the “verzetshelden” (heroes of the Dutch resistance) risked their own lives to save others. By organizing strikes, sabotaging Nazi-controlled infrastructure, forging identity papers and other documents, printing underground newspapers, and even hiding Jews in their own homes, many Dutch people gave the German soldiers a hard time indeed.
The Dutch Resistance Museum (Verzetsmuseum) is located in Amsterdam’s Plantage neighborhood. Artis ZOO, just across the road, has a big parking lot. Trams have stops along the Plantage Kerklaan and the Waterlooplein metro is just a short walk away. There is a restaurant and café on ground level.
The museum is open daily, except New Year’s Day, April 27 and Christmas Day. Those with kids and concession card holders get discounts and those with a Museum Card may enter for free.
