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Memories of absence

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The Netherlands was placed under German occupation during the second World War after the  country was invaded by the Nazi Germany on the 10th of May, 1940, which continued till the German Surrender in 1945. Nearly seventy percent of the country's Jewish population was killed in Nazi concentration camps during these years. 

The picture here, sculptures of suitcases on the pavement outside the old Leiden police station, shows how the Jews of Leiden reported with their belongings to the station under the false impression that they were going to be taken to safe haven. But they were instead sent off to the Nazi concentration camps.

Strangely, these suitcases stand outside the Bureau van Politie without a plaque or anything that tells the curious wanderer of what they might be, as if the entire city collectively wants to forget this painful memory.

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Cotton University
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Zonneveldstraat
Leiden
Netherlands

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