An exhibition in Amsterdam this week memorializing children killed in Gaza appeared to appropriate Holocaust imagery by using shoes to symbolize the Palestinian victims.
The event was held on Sunday, less than two days before Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom Hashoah, in the Dutch capital’s central Dam Square. It included thousands of shoes arranged in rows, an apparent allusion to iconic displays of the shoes of Holocaust victims throughout Europe. These include the Shoes on the Danube Bank memorial in Budapest, Hungary, and a collection of about 8,000 shoes of child victims of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
The pro-Palestinian group Plant an Olive Tree Foundation, which organized the event, said the shoes were placed to commemorate more than 20,000 children who were killed in Gaza during the war, which began with the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel. As Dutch celebrities read the names of children and journalists reported killed in the war, a display showed the names and pictures of 313 children, and fliers were distributed to passersby, Plant an Olive Tree said.
The exhibition was held shortly before the beginning of YomHashoah on Monday evening, when Israel and Jewish communities worldwide commemorate the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis. Reports of antisemitic incidents in the Netherlands have spiked since the October 7 attack, and the country has featured prominently in Holocaust remembrance because Anne Frank, one of the genocide’s most famous victims, hid there before being killed.
The apparent connection between the Amsterdam shoe memorial and Holocaust monuments drew criticism.
“Even when they attempt to promote the narrative of a so-called genocide, they draw imagery from Jewish history,” Amir Tsarfati, founder of Behold Israel, a pro-Israel nonprofit geared toward Christians, posted on Telegram on Tuesday. “Look at this shameful presentation in the heart of Amsterdam, where thousands of shoes were displayed to protest the alleged killing of Palestinian children.”
Hamas officials say more than 72,000 people in the Strip were killed during the war — including over 600 since a ceasefire took effect in October 2025. The toll is unverified and does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
The Israeli military believes that Hamas’s overall toll is largely accurate, with IDF officials estimating that two to three civilians were killed for every dead terror operative.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
