Yom heruteinu, as Henri Kater used to call it.
Or the day that we were finally rid of those shitbag Germans, as my auntie used to say.
So, a propos thereto, a meise.
May Fourth, as the day preceding liberation day, is the Dutch memorial day. Every year thousands of people gather on Dam Square (and at many other places ) to remember those Netherlanders who did not live to see freedom again.
Wreaths are laid, speeches made, and two minutes of silence is observed.
One year on Dam Square, on May Fourth, a German tourist passes by, doesn't know what is going on, and taps one of the people at the event on the shoulder. "Ei, vass iss heppenink here? Vatt are yu doingg?"
The Amsterdammer patiently explains "sha, we are remembering the immense suffering that our nation experienced at the hands of the Germans during the war".
The German is miffed. "Vell, ve Tchermans suffered a lot during ze var also, you know".
And the Amsterdammer patiently explains "ja, we know. We're celebrating that tomorrow."
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Three or four years ago the memorial ceremonies were disturbed by young Maghrebis (of which the Netherlands has very many), who trashed the wreaths, heckled the participants, and gave every evidence of disrespecting the occasion.
This was probably an expression of both anti-Semitism and pro-Palestinianism.
As well as a rude gesture towards Dutch society, of a style which unthinkingly demonstrated that the Maghrebis had absorbed overmuch of Dutch manners, morals, and thoughtlessness. Ironically, by being so utterly un-Dutch they showed how typically Dutch they had become.
But for whatever reason, it ticked off the Dutch. For weeks afterwards the press flowed over with outrage and venom directed at the Maghrebis.
Why exactly were the autochthonous peeved, and why precisely did the allochthonous do what they did?
The autochthonous people (natives) were angry because, of course, the Maghrebis (aka allochthonous, ergo 'immigrants') had disrespected the quarter of a million Dutch who had perished in World War II.
The Dutch-Maghrebi teenagers, on the other hand, saw it as an event with a Jewish focus.
And therein lies the problem.
Of the Dutchmen who perished in WWII, over forty percent were Jewish - nearly three quarters of the Dutch Jewish population did not survive the war. So WWII memorial events naturally tend to stress what happened to the Jews (who may, because of above mentioned events, be notable by their absence).
That the Netherlands is pro-Israel (or perceived as such) is a sore point for many of the Dutch-Maghrebis. Most Dutch will assume that this is because the Maghrebis cannot but be unfairly biased in favour of fellow Arabs. The Dutch-Maghrebis on the other hand, with equal validity, claim that the Dutch are unjustifiably anti-Arab and pro-Jewish.
The Dutch-Maghrebis are right.
The Dutch anti-Arab bias is not based primarily on the situation in the Middle-East, but on the fact that Maghrebis and other Arabs are the 'other', the foreign element, the outsiders, and (historically) the despoilers of Christian countries and slavers of the Mediterranean.
The Dutch pro-Jewish bias is not based primarily on Israel (much though many Dutch admire the Jewish state), but on the fact that for many, Jews WERE Dutch, and ARE dead.
[And the dead are ALL Dutch, you know. Often more Dutch than the living.]
This is a generalization, of course.
There are many other factors in play, such as the perception of shared history and shared values, admiration for a plucky small country that repulsed its enemies and survived against horrific odds, the shared characteristics of stubbornness, brashness, chutzpah, the similarity of the wars of national survival (the Dutch eighty year war against Spain, during which time the rest of Europe either ignored the situation or actively collaborated with the Spanish, which compares with the Israeli resistence to the Paynim while the world apathetizes), and last but not least massive guilt over what had become of Dutch Jewry.
Insofar as the resident Maghrebis understand the significance of what happened to Dutch Jewry, what it means to them is that the Dutch are venerating the memory of a minority that they allowed to be slaughtered, while despising the minority that is there now.
One could argue that if the Dutch want the resident aliens to share their veneration of the Dutch past, they would do well to include them in the Dutch present, rather than sending a message of their eventual fate.
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