Amsterdam: friend of Anne Frank lays foundation stone for Holocaust monument

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Jacqueline van Maarsen on the construction site for the new Holocaust memorial in Amsterdam

Photo: Remko De Waal / dpa

After years of legal dispute over a new Holocaust monument in Amsterdam, one of Anne Frank's school friends laid the first stone name for the memorial.

"I am satisfied that the time has finally come," said 91-year-old Jacqueline van Maarsen at the ceremony in the former Jewish quarter of the Dutch capital.

The name on the first of 102,000 stones is that of Dina Frankenhuis.

The Amsterdam office worker was murdered in 1943 at the age of 20 in the German extermination camp Sobibor in occupied Poland.

The draft for the memorial, which is due to be completed in 2021, was created by the Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind on behalf of the Dutch Auschwitz Committee.

"Soon we will have 102,000 names here of people who died, did not have a grave and were never named," said committee chairman Jacques Grishaver.

"We are now bringing these names back."

Dispute between the city and residents delayed the start of construction

The start of construction was delayed by a dispute between the city and local residents.

They claimed the monument was too big and 24 trees had to be felled.

A court ruled that interest in the memorial outweighed the interests of local residents.

Germany is supporting the construction, which will cost a total of 15 million euros, with four million euros.

According to a media report, the Netherlands is contributing around 8 million euros, with business people and citizens donating the rest.

Van Maarsen himself also gave 50,000 euros.

The sum came from the auction of a poem that Anne Frank had written in the poetry album of a sister of Van Maarsen.

Anne Frank, who became world famous for her posthumously published diary, died in 1945 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the age of 15.

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fek / dpa / AP