Boekman (Theater na de Dam)

May 15, 1940. The Netherlands surrendered and German troops occupied the country. In a bedroom in Amsterdam, the Jewish alderman Emanuel Boekman and his wife Jansje look at each other. They know the horrors ahead. A befriended physician has provided them with a toxic; they decide not to await their fate.

May 2021: In Amsterdam are a foundation, a street, a school and a hall that bear the name of Boekman, but who still knows who he was and what he meant for the city and our country?

In the Boekmanzaal, in the heart of what was once the Jewish neighborhood, actor Harpert Michielsen and musician Erik van der Horst delve into the life and work of the striking councilor who changed thinking about art in the Netherlands forever. In words, sounds and images they take you into the last days of the man who made it from unskilled worker to alderman with a doctorate degree, the man who, without personal artistic aspirations, became a passionate advocate for the art in his city, the man who stepped out of life with his wife to avoid persecution by the Nazis.

This performance shows Emanuel Boekman against the background of pre-war Amsterdam, politics, the art world and Jewish life that was destroyed during the Second World War. A musical story about art, politics and ideals, in which a lost Amsterdam comes back to life for a moment.

Photo header: Former Jewish quarter around Waterlooplein in 1914 | Amsterdam City Archives