DE HOLLANDSE SCHOUWBURGThe Holland Theatre played a tragic role during World War II. Originally it was the house of the director of Artis Zoo across the road; it became the Artis Schouwburg in 1892 and was soon one of the centres of Dutch theatrical life. In WWII however, the Germans turned it into a theatre by and for Jews, and from 1942 they made it a detention centre for Jews awaiting deportation. Some 60.000 of them passed through here on their way to Westerbork transit camp in the east of the country and from there to the death camps. After the war no-one felt like reviving the theatre. In 1961 it was demolished except for the façade and the area immediately behind it. A 10 metre high pylon in the former auditorium commemorates the country’s Jews who were killed by the Nazi’s.