German president addresses Dutch WWII remembrance

The Netherlands has marked its annual day of liberation from Nazi rule in 1945 by inviting Germany's new President Joachim Gauck to be the first German to deliver a keynote speech at the Dutch remembrance ceremony. 

German President Joachim Gauck recalled the more than 100,000 Jews deported and murdered by Nazi Germany after its invasion of the neutral Netherlands in 1940, the German aerial bombing of Rotterdam, the many Dutch forced into slave labor, and Dutch resistance fighters who gave their lives.

May 5, a Dutch national holiday, marks the moment in 1945 when German forces capitulated in the Dutch town of Wageningen, near Ahrheim on the lower Rhine. The Netherlands, then with a population of about eight million, was freed largely by Canadian troops assisted by British, American and Polish forces.

Gauck in his speech, which was broadcast live on Dutch and German television, recapped his central theme, freedom and responsibility, saying even in times of war individuals could and did make choices, for example, those who tried to save Jewish children.




Read more: German president addresses Dutch WWII remembrance | News | DW.DE | 05.05.2012