'You must tell it to your children'

The number ten bus that takes us to the railway station, rolls down the cobbled Wijnstraat and past the imposing Staadhuis.

The Staadhuis dates from the 1600s. It has a more modern 1800s front, with two very large lions on guard. They are slightly sleepy looking, more like labradors really. Everyone in Dordrecht marries in the Staadhuis. Mark and Ellen were married there. Wedding cars and carriages regularly pull up and people stop to watch. I have been among the well wishers.

As the bus passed the Stadhuis last week, I noticed an unusual monument out of the corner of my eye. It sits on the corner of the building, above head height, in marble, with a Jewish star and an inscription in Hebrew. I went to investigate. It is a smallish marble block, with the inscription in dutch on the other side. It reads 'Je moet het je kinderen ver tellen'  which is  'You must tell it to your children'. Tell them what, you might ask.

That while nowhere was safe, Holland was one of the most dangerous places in Europe to be a Jew. That Adolf Eichmann presided over the eradication of Holland's Jews from Amsterdam and was ruthlessly efficient. That there were about 140,000 Jews in Holland in 1940 and over 100,000 were sent to German camps. That about a thousand survived.

That the Dutch were divided in their attitude to Jews, some turning them in to the Nazis, others providing shelter and escape at great personal risk. That the people of Amsterdam went on strike to protest the treatment of Jews, infuriating the Nazis.

That Dordrecht had a substantial Jewish community dating back to the 1600s. That the Staadhuis lists the names of 221 who died in the second world war, probably the majority of Jews living here. That after the war, the once busy synagogue was quiet, because nearly all who had worshipped there had been murdered in Germany. That the unused synagogue was demolished and a memorial erected to the 'almost disappeared Jewish community' of Dordrecht.