National Remembrance Day in Son en Breugel 2026

Dear attendees,

It is wonderful to see so many of you here for the Remembrance Day ceremony.
Today we have gathered to keep alive the memory of all those—civilians and military personnel—who were killed or murdered in the Kingdom of the Netherlands or anywhere else in the world.
During World War II, the colonial war in Indonesia, and in subsequent conflicts and peacekeeping operations.

We are here together to remember.
And to learn.
Because remembering without learning turns history into something that lies behind us and seems unimportant.
Yet history has valuable lessons to teach us.

I’d like to share the following with you:
“I think about you all the time.
Don’t worry about me.
I’m not a fan of chocolate.
I’ll be home soon.”

These were the last words of Hendrik Veeneman, acting mayor of Son en Breugel, to his wife and children from Camp Vught.
He wrote the message in 1944 on a small piece of blotting paper that was smuggled out of the camp by other inmates.
Along with a number of mayors from the region, Hendrik Veeneman was arrested by the German occupiers and imprisoned in Camp Vught because they refused to designate residents for forced labor.
Months later, Hendrik Veeneman was transferred from Camp Vught to Camp Sachsenhausen in Germany and subsequently to Camp Mauthausen in Austria.
He died there on April 14, 1945, from exhaustion.
His daughter, Lisette Nienhaus-Veeneman, never knew her father.
He passed away when she was 9 months old.
Although she has no memories of her father, he remains very close to her, as she keeps his experiences and those of the other mayors alive and passes them on.
She does this, among other things, together with Geert v.d. Eertwegh, a resident of Son en Breugel and one of the organizers of Camp Liberty.

They pass on the story, especially to younger generations.
So that they know, so that they understand.
And so that they learn how things can be different, without violence and weapons.
For years now, Lisette has been regularly invited by schools in Son en Breugel and beyond to talk about her father.
Next week, for example—and I’m grateful to be there—she’ll be speaking to the class at De Harlekijn elementary school.
And she will teach the children about the events of World War II through her father’s story.

That is what stories and memories do.
They bring the past closer.
They humanize history and do justice to the victims.
When stories and memories fade, our history fades, and we risk forgetting how war begins.
War does not begin with violence.
War begins with words, with pitting people against one another.
With mistrust and exclusion. 
If we stop listening to one another, lose our connection with one another, if we stop seeing the other as a human being, then we lose not only one another but also ourselves.
And that can have terrible consequences.

 
Around the world, we see how war, violence, and exclusion continue to shape people’s lives.
Nearly half of the world’s population—about 4 billion people—lives in a country currently experiencing terrible events. 
These range from large-scale wars between countries to internal conflicts and terrorist attacks.
Behind those figures are millions of people living with uncertainty and fear.
We, too, are indirectly experiencing the consequences of the unstable situation in the world.

Fortunately, there is no war here, but we do see that words are becoming harsher.
Differences are being blown out of proportion.
People are being reduced to “us” and “them.”
If there’s one thing we should learn from our history, it’s that we must learn to understand one another.
To bridge differences through conversation and to remain curious about one another.
And to share and pass on stories together.
Just as Lisette does, with the symbolic piece of tissue paper in her hand.

Let us therefore not only remember, but also remain vigilant.
Vigilant against indifference.
Against division.
Against the disappearance of understanding and caring for one another.
And let us work on what connects us.
On what does us good.
Small gestures or actions can sometimes make a big positive difference.
Let the stories of the past guide the choices we make.
With an eye for one another, with room for everyone.
So that we can say: ‘Don’t worry about us.’

Thank you.