The vulnerability of freedom
National Monument Oranjehotel, The Hague (NL), 2024
Locked up in a lonely cell, deprived of your liberty: many people suffered this fate, and worse, during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. At the National Monument Oranjehotel, young people aged 10 to 18 find out how fragile freedom can be when the Dutch constitutional state comes under threat.
Video: (c) NOS Journaal, 29-08-2024
New educational programme
From 1940 to 1945, more than 25,000 people were imprisoned in the Oranjehotel to await interrogation and trial. Today the former prison is a museum and a remembrance centre. For its new educational programme, the museum has opened up row C – comprising 16 original cells – for the first time. We developed a concept for the programme: “Free thought, imprisoned”.
Photography: (c) Werkend in beeld, National Monument Oranjehotel
A multisensory experience
Through a multisensory interactive experience, pupils experience the fragility of the Dutch constitutional state under the Nazis’ totalitarian regime. Light, props, images and sound bring former prisoners’ stories to life. Again and again, the question arises: Why weren't these people living in freedom? Spending half an hour in a cell gives visitors a sense of how dark, cramped and lonely it is.
The meaning of freedom
The programme keeps resistance fighters’, Jews’, communists’ and Jehova’s Witnesses’ memories alive while spurring young people to think about what freedom really means. Many people were locked up here because the constitutional state had ceased to function. At the end of their visit, pupils discuss the value of freedom and the democratic constitutional state, then and now. As they’ve seen, freedom isn’t something that can be taken for granted.
Credits
Client
National Monument OranjehotelContent design
Studio LouterSpatial design
Maarten StolkSound design
KlevR SounddesignProgramming, hardware, construction
FlinkGraphic design
Malou OsendarpFilm production
Foeke De KoeLighting design
Tinus Holthuis