Around 1,000 demonstrators gathered on Waterlooplein in central Amsterdam on Sunday to protest at the presence of Israeli president Yitzhak Herzog at the opening ceremony for the new Holocaust museum. 

Waving Palestinian flags and carrying banners with texts such as “never again means now” and “museum yes, Herzog no”, the crowd chanted “from the river to the sea”, watched by riot police. Police have sealed off the area where the Portuguese synagogue is located and the ceremony is taking place.

The museum itself is housed in a former creche where some 600 Jewish babies were smuggled into hiding, opposite the former theatre where the city’s Jews were rounded up for deportation. 

News that Herzog would be attending leaked out last week, leading to calls for his invitation to be revoked. “The Holocaust museum is very important but I cannot ignore what is happening [in Gaza] and that the Dutch government is receiving the president of Israel,” demonstrator Lianne de Roo said. “Not in my name.” 

Demonstrator Shira told the Parool: “I have a Jewish father. It is now more important than ever for Jewish people to show what they stand for, and to speak out against what is happening in Gaza.” 

However, Fred van Vliet (81), one of the babies at the Jewish creche who were sent into hiding, was at the ceremony itself and said the museum is extremely necessary given so many youngsters have forgotten the Holocaust. 

“I am thinking of my parents, both of whom were murdered and who are looking down on us today,” he told the paper. The demonstrations, he said, were regrettable. “There should not be protests on a day like today,” he said. “People should be able to separate things.” 

Yuval Gal from the Jewish anti-Zionist movement Erev Rav which called for Sunday’s demonstration, called on the International Criminal Court in The Hague to arrest Herzog. 

“The people from the Holocaust museum say we should not make things political,” he said. “But we can’t sit still while there is the threat of genocide, apartheid or occupation.”