A poem by a 15-year-old Dutch boy about his uncle who joined the SS will not be part of next week’s Remembrance Day commemorations following boycott threats from several organisations.



Auke de Leeuw had been invited to read his poem after winning poetry competition for schools organised by the May 4 and 5 organising committee. Pupils were invited to write a poem about the after-effects of the Second World War.

De Leeuw’s poem focuses on his uncle who served as one of 20,000 Dutch volunteers with the military wing of the SS. He died on the Eastern Front.

Insulting

But a group representing Auschwitz survivors said they would boycott the event if the poetry reading went ahead. The Israel information centre Cidi also criticised the decision to allow De Leeuw to read his poem.

Cidi spokeswoman Esther Voet told the NRC the piece is inappropriate for such an occasion and an insult to survivors. ‘As long as there are survivors, Remembrance Day should be about them and those they lost,’ she said.

The organisers have now dropped the poem from the ceremony, which will be attended by queen Beatrix and members of her family. The Remembrance Day gathering on the Dam in central Amsterdam is ‘too important to be overshadowed by the discussion which the poem has created,’ the organisers said in a statement.

Everyone loses

The teenager at the centre of the row told the NRC he wanted to show everyone loses during a war, no matter what side they are on.

‘How can we learn from our mistakes if we are not allowed to name them,’ he said. ‘I was born in peacetime. It is hard enough for me to make the right choices, so how must it have been for people during the war?’

The wrong choice

My name is Auke Siebe Dirk

I was named after my uncle Dirk Siebe

A boy who made the wrong choice

Chose the wrong army

With the wrong ideals

Escaped poverty

Hoped for a better life

No way back

If a choice is made

Only a way forward

Which he cannot avoid

Fighting against the Russians

Fearing to die

Thinking of home

Where Dirk’s future is still to begin

His mother is torn apart by the war

A mother of 11 children, with four in the resistance

And one fighting on the eastern front.

She loved all 11 of them

Dirk Siebe never came home

My name is Auke Siebe Dirk

I am named after Dirk Siebe

Because Dirk Siebe should not be forgotten either



(Unofficial translation)