21 search results for “second world war” in the Staff website
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Second World War victims commemorated in Hour of Remembrance
On 4 May, Leiden University remembered the victims of the Second World War from our university community. Alumni, students and present and former staff of the University came together for this Hour of Remembrance.
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What did resistance look like in Indonesia during the Second World War?
Stories of resistance in the Second World War are widely covered in Dutch historiography: Hannie Schaft, Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, and Professor Cleveringa are some of the best known. But these accounts largely focus on the Dutch domestic perspective. On the other side of the world, a complex colonial…
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Bart van der Boom
Faculty of Humanities
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Wouter Linmans: 'The Netherlands did see World War II coming'
On 10 May 1940, the Netherlands was taken completely by surprise by the attack of the German army. Wasn’t it? In his dissertation, Wouter Linmans debunks the idea that the Second World War took the Netherlands by surprise. ‘From 1935 onwards, all major political parties wanted to invest in the military.’…
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expert Ian Lilley holds commemoration speech at Netherlands-Australia War Memorial
Professor Ian Lilley, the Faculty of Archaeology’s Willem Willems Chair in Archaeological Heritage, was invited by Her Excellency Mrs. Marion Derckx, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Australia, to present the 2022 commemoration speech for Netherlands Memorial Day on May 4th at the Netherlands-Australia…
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Historian Frank van Vree is the new Cleveringa Professor
Frank van Vree, Emeritus Professor of War, Conflict and Memory Studies at the University of Amsterdam (UVA), is the new Cleveringa Professor at Leiden University this year.
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Historian Gert Oostindie the new Cleveringa Professor
Gert Oostindie, Emeritus Professor of Colonial and Postcolonial History, is this year’s Cleveringa Professor at Leiden University. He was appointed by the University on 4 October. In his inaugural lecture on 24 November, entitled Courage and Disregard, he will talk about (academic) freedom in relation…
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Polish Holocaust researchers accused of defamation will give Cleveringa Lecture
On 26 November historian Jan Grabowski and sociologist Barbara Engelking will both give the Cleveringa Lecture. They wrote a book about the Holocaust in Poland and were taken to court for defamation.
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Traitors, profiteers or collaborators: ‘The Jewish Council has long been judged too harshly’
For too long the Dutch collective memory has judged the Jewish Council too harshly. This perspective needs to be adjusted, Bart van der Boom argues in his new book ‘De politiek van het kleinste kwaad’ (lit. ‘The Politics of the Lesser Evil’).
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Cleveringa Professor Frank van Vree: ‘It’s high time to discuss the ritualisation of the past’
The annual commemoration of the nation’s war dead on Dam Square and at Waalsdorpervlakte, the Dutch apologies for historical slavery and the Cleveringa Lecture itself: our relationship with history is often ritualistic, Cleveringa Professor Frank van Vree will say in his inaugural lecture on 27 Nove…
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Herta Mohr: Headstrong female scientist in a man's world
As a twelve-year-old girl, Nicky van de Beek became intrigued by the tomb chapels in Saqqara, Egypt. Now she is doing her PhD on them, just like another Leiden Egyptologist decades earlier. Herta Mohr persevered with her research during World War II. Now she is the namesake of the first Leiden building…
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Hour of Remembrance on 4 May: ‘We commemorate war victims and draw links to the present’
During the ‘Hour of Remembrance’ on 4 May, the University community remembers its students and staff who were killed in the Second World War. It also looks at freedom and oppression today. Three questions for Sara Polak, chair of the Hour of Remembrance committee.
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Cleveringa Professor: Holocaust remembrance has led to very different political lessons
From memorials to the armed forces to memory stones for individual victims. It was only later that the Holocaust took a central role in Western remembrance culture, Cleveringa Professor Frank van Vree notes. ‘Nationalists and human rights activists both invoke the experience of the Holocaust.’
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‘Sometimes simply staying alive is a form of resistance’
How do harrowing war experiences affect different generations? Students have made a video about poignant family stories. They interviewed other students and writer Dubravka Ugrešić. The premiere of the film was on 4 May during the online Hour of Remembrance. Watch this online memorial.
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Cleveringa professors target of hate campaigns: ‘Intimidation frustrates Holocaust research’
Holocaust scholars Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski will jointly hold the Cleveringa lecture on November 26. They were accused of defamation in Poland for a book they co-edited. How has this affected them? ‘This is an attempt to wear us down.’
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Cleveringa honoured with statue in birthplace of Appingedam
Almost 81 years after his famous protest speech against the German occupation, Leiden professor Rudolph Pabus Cleveringa will be remembered in his Groningen birthplace of Appingedam. A statue of him will be unveiled there on 12 November amid various other activities.
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Contested heritage in The Hague: what to do with the remains of the Atlantik Wall?
During World War II, the Nazi’s ordered a coastal defensive line to be built from the south of France to Norway. This Atlantik Wall aimed to defend their territories in continental Europe from an Allied naval invasion. The defensive line went right through the Dutch city of The Hague. The material remains…
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Cleveringa professor Gert Oostindie: ‘We stood up for our own freedom but ignored that of others’
Now that war is once again raging in Europe, the question of when you need to stand up against injustice has become more relevant than ever. In his Cleveringa lecture on 24 November historian Gert Oostindie will discuss why colonial domination was not regarded as an issue in Leiden for a long time.
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Freedom: what does it mean?
On 5 May we celebrate freedom, a basic human right that should not be taken for granted. We asked international students and staff what it means to them.
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Cleveringa lecture
Inaugural lecture
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Cleveringa Lecture by Gert Oostindie: Leiden University should also reflect on its colonial history
It is crucial that Leiden University reflects on its colonial history. These were the words of Cleveringa Professor Gert Oostindie in his inaugural lecture on 24 November. ‘As a university community, we must dare to hold up a mirror to ourselves and, where possible and necessary, also take concrete…