UvA students submit proposal for new war memorial
A group of students and alumni submitted a proposal to UvA for new monuments to the UvA victims of World War II. “There has been no update of the monument since 1950.”
There is still no suitable monument for UvA students who were killed during World War II, a group of UvA students argues. Since 2022, a group of students and researchers have been trying to get the university to erect a more elaborate memorial, such as in the form of a list of names or stumble stones. To date, there is none.
So this week, the group sent an elaborate new proposal for erecting an updated war memorial to the UvA's communications department. Two years ago, the student initiative had already asked for an update to the memorial plaque that currently hangs in the Oudemanhuispoort. In the auditorium, in addition to the most important and virtually only war memorial at the UvA from 1950, a student-made poster with a list of names has also been hanging since 2022. But a paper poster is not as powerful as a monument, according to the proposal.
The proposal points out that the original plaque “only commemorates those who fought in the war or otherwise fell in battle for the Netherlands.” Navid Nail (28, now an Art & Cult alumnus), speaking on behalf of the group of UvA students who submitted the proposal, argues that the nearly 75-year-old plaque is outdated. An additional monument to the many Holocaust victims and “other victims of National Socialism” should be in place alongside the existing plaque.
Memorial of names
Since 2022, the group has yet to succeed in “stirring” the UvA into action. With the proposal published this week, they hope to turn the initiative over to the university. Further research into the full names, place of death, and additional victims is needed in this regard. “We cannot do the research all by ourselves as volunteers,” said Nail, who is German. For example, the student researchers found that some of those on the list they put up in 2022 were actually killed while serving in the German army.
The group suggests two possible avenues of remembrance. First, they hope to erect a monument with names of the fallen similar to the one erected in 2021 in Weesperstraat for Jewish victims. “Memorializing the names is increasingly popular in the culture of remembrance,” Nail explains. “You often see something like this now for the victims of terrorist attacks, where the names are listed, or to commemorate events like the George Floyd protest, where the memorial is named after a victim.”
As early as 1998, the book A vulnerable center of the mind by UvA professor Péjé Knegtmans published a list of names of the victims among UvA students and employees. Nail considers it a missed opportunity that this list of names was never used for a monument and “is now wasting away in the library.”
Stumble stones
The second proposal from the initiators is to lay solpersteiner (stumble stones) at UvA buildings. These hand-made bronze stones can be requested by those involved. The stones would then be placed in the ground in front of university buildings where UvA victims studied or worked.
“The length of that process makes it a memorial that multiple generations could participate in,” the report explains. Not only will placement take time, but the cost could amount to “over €34,000,” according to Nail. But, the researcher argues, “Tuition has just been raised. We have to ask: What can we expect from the university for that investment?”
Role of the university
Especially as the university faces a complicated position in the face of recent protests, Nail believes that “a university should have a clear position concerning atrocities of the past.” In doing so, Nail hopes that a “well-researched monument” would be a step toward making the university more than an “education provider.” In doing so, the group notes that with platforms like “Decolonial Dialogues,” the UvA has already shown its willingness to reflect on its past.
The UvA states that it is in the process of reaching out to the correct agencies within the university so that “someone can take the appropriate action” in response to the proposal. Partly because of the vacation period at the UvA, it has not been able to do so before the commemoration to be held on Saturday night on Remembrance Day.
The group of initiators simply hopes the university will establish a task force to deal with a new monument, Nail says. “Where the monument should be, how big, how much money should be spent on it, I am happy to leave that up to the university. As long as there is something.”
