From 22 April to 29 May 2023, the Resistance Museum will display a memorial wall as a temporary monument to the April-May strikes, this year eighty years ago 

On April 29, 1943, the occupiers unexpectedly announced that the Dutch soldiers, who had been released in 1940, would still have to go to Germany as prisoners of war: almost 300,000 young men. Everyone knows someone who does. 200,000 to 500,000 indignant Dutch people go on strike demonstratively.

Death sentences on posters
The occupiers immediately react with intimidation and terror: German patrols drive around firing. Eighty detainees are summarily convicted and shot. Their bodies are buried in secret places; their names on posters, to instill fear. At least 184 people were killed and more than 400 injured. On May 6, almost no strikes will take place anywhere.

As a reminder of this impressive history, the terrifying posters can be seen from 22 April to 29 May 2023 on a memorial wall erected in the temporary exhibition space of the Resistance Museum.

Turning point
The April-May strikes are a turning point: no one in the Netherlands still thinks that the occupation is going well and the German occupiers are giving up trying to win over the Dutch. From now on it will be a hard battle.

Memorial wall, 22 April to 29 May, Resistance Museum Amsterdam, Plantage Kerklaan 61