Associate artist ANOHNI lived on Gerrit van der Veenstraat for a year in the late 1970s. As a young child, she and her family were unaware of the dark WWII history of the neighborhood. ANOHNI has now initiated a ceremonial project addressing the layers of memories contained on the street. The event centers an orchestral performance of William Basinski’s contemplative masterpiece The Disintegration Loops.
A mixed and vital community that included many Jewish residents, Euterpestraat was transformed in 1942 when the Nazis established their SD intelligence headquarters in the building that is currently the Gerrit van der Veen College secondary school. Across the street, the Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung organized the deportation of tens of thousands of Jewish people in a building where the St. Ignatiusgymnasium currently stands. Anne Frank and her family were among those who were detained there before being sent to concentration camps. After the war, Amsterdam’s officials hastened to ease the stain of fear upon the neighborhood by changing the street’s name in honor of a Dutch resistance fighter Gerrit van der Veen.
dates
Sun June 18 4:00 PM
Prices
- free entry € 0
language & duration
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Language no problem
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1 hour 40 minutes (zonder pauze)
ANOHNI:
‘I lived on Gerrit van der Veenstraat for one year in the late 1970s as a 7 year old child, and my English family was ignorant to the events of thirty years previous. Astonishingly, we never questioned the story behind the Mezuzah embedded in the wall by our front door. To me as a child, the neighborhood was a place of refuge and creativity; it was the site where my imagination first unfurled. Euterpe, a Greek muse of music and lyricism, delivered her gentle promise to me. I played, unaware, in the street where a few decades earlier the Frank family themselves had been contained, awaiting deportation, at the Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung.
I was shocked to finally learn the terrible history of Euterpestraat. During WWII, the former girls' HBS across the street from my home had been converted into the headquarters of the Dutch section of the German Sicherheitsdienst (SD). On the internet, I saw black and white images of SS flags casting shadows over my childhood dream.
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Anohni, Associate Artist Holland Festival 2023
© ANOHNI