Utrecht University of Applied Sciences has temporarily canceled a lecture series on the Holocaust. The educational institution reports that it will hold the series at a different time on Sunday, because “the safety of speakers, students, teachers and visitors cannot be guaranteed”.
The lecture series on the persecution of the Jews was supposed to start on February 7, but the university surprisingly announced that the series of eight lectures would be postponed indefinitely. The Utrecht University of Applied Sciences is accused of being influenced and guided by the pro-Palestinian activist group New Neighbors Utrecht, the Telegraaf reported.
The university’s spokesperson rejected this accusation and told the newspaper that the reason for the postponement is the temporal and historical context given the war in Gaza. “The reason is that we want to facilitate a diverse and balanced dialog on this issue. We need more time to put the events of October 7 and beyond into a broader perspective, with room for different opinions and beliefs.” However, the university was unable to provide any information on when the lecture series will continue.
The Jewish community and the lecturers who were to take part in the lecture vehemently criticized this decision. Lecturer Lotte Bergen, who was to give the fifth lecture on concentration camps, cannot understand the university’s decision and suspects anti-Semitic reasons. “It even seems anti-Semitic to me. If you allow history lessons to be dictated by current events in this way, something is completely wrong. This is about a series of lectures on the Holocaust between 1933 and 1945, the history of which is more important than ever to teach. And then a committee decides: We’re not going to do that for a while, it’s too complicated for us”.
Bergen is convinced that a clear signal needs to be sent. Teaching should no longer be determined by committees or a group of activists, she told the Telegraaf.
Chanan Hertzberger, chairman of the Jewish Central Consultation, finds it unacceptable that the university is allowing itself to be intimidated by the activist group. “It is shameful and deeply offensive that we cannot count the Board of Governors of Utrecht University of Applied Sciences among those who want to preserve the memory of the Holocaust.”
Director Naomi Mestrum of the Center for Information and Documentation Israel (CIDI) also cannot understand the postponement of the lecture series on the Holocaust. She wonders why the university even wants to update the thematic examination of the mass murder of over six million Jews that took place 80 years ago.
The Utrecht action group New Neighbours announced shortly after the university’s announcement that this was a victory for them. Sympathizers of New Neighbours Utrecht congratulate the organization at length: “A nice victory”, “outrageous that they wanted to hold this lecture series at all” and “I saw that a Holocaust survivor is coming as a speaker. Bizarre,” the Telegraaf reported.