UPDATE April 26, 2023: Police arrested Goyim Defense League member Frank Wilson in Poland on Tuesday on suspicion of projecting an antisemitic slur on Amsterdam’s Anne Frank House which led to widespread shock in the Netherlands; more here.
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UPDATE March 2, 2023: Dutch Police have named Goyim Defense League member Frank Wilson responsible for the antisemitic projection found on the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Wilson has evaded arrest from a previous assault charge and fled to Poland last year, where he posed with GDL founder, Jon Minadeo II with antisemitic messaging outside of Auschwitz. Dutch & German police are investigating other antisemitic incidents to link them to possibly Frank Wilson; more here.
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The Prime Minister of the Netherlands led a chorus of condemnation on Friday following the laser projection of an antisemitic message onto the outer wall of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, where the famed teenage Jewish diarist hid with her family during the Nazi occupation of the country.
The offending message was flashed into the front of the building on Monday using a laser. It referred to Anne Frank as the “inventor of the ballpoint pen” — an internet meme actively spread by Holocaust deniers who falsely claim that the diary was written using a pen that did not exist during World War II. The Anne Frank House said in a statement that images of the incident were circulating on right-wing chat groups and it had referred the matter to police and prosecutors.
Calling the message “reprehensible,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in a statement on Friday that “there is no place for antisemitism in our country; we cannot accept this.” Separately, Justice Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz slammed the message as “disgusting.”
Femke Halsema, the mayor of Amsterdam, said she was communicating with police, judicial officials, and the Jewish community regarding the incident. Halsema denounced the message as “pure antisemitism” and an “attack on the legacy of Anne Frank.”
NGO StopAntisemitism expressed their outrage over the antisemitic incident.
Femke Halsema, the mayor of Amsterdam, said she was communicating with police and judicial officials.
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) February 10, 2023
Halsema denounced the message as “pure antisemitism” and an “attack on the legacy of Anne Frank.”
A study last month revealed that almost one-quarter of Dutch millennials believe the Holocaust is a myth. At the same time, 60 percent of respondents did not name the Netherlands as a country impacted by the Holocaust. Over 100,000 Dutch Jews — three-quarters of the population — were murdered during the Holocaust, the highest killing rate recorded in western Europe.
Earlier this week, a separate report disclosed that nearly half of Dutch high school teachers had witnessed an antisemitic incident during the last year.
The same report noted that 20 percent of offenders were of Moroccan origin — double the number recorded by a similar survey ten years ago — with Dutch citizens from a Turkish background also overrepresented. Offenders are mainly young males, the report stated.