Hiddema denounces Christmas wish for youth branch FvD: ‘Maybe Westerbork is a suitable location’

Yule is a Germanic festival celebrated by the Nazis to replace Christmas. In 1943, prisoners in camp Westerbork were not allowed to celebrate Hanukkah, but Nazis did celebrate Yule. Perhaps that is why Westerbork is “a suitable location for JFVD to breathe new life into such a tradition that encourages a healthy sense of the people”, sneezes Hiddema in an ironic response to the Twitter message of the youth branch of Forum.

It is not the first time that the youth branch of Forum has been discredited because of anti-Semitic statements. At the end of last year, FvD almost fell apart due to anti-Semitic messages in JFVD app groups. Many FvD prominent figures at the time thought that Baudet did far too little about it.

This was followed by an exodus, after which former FvD members Joost Eerdmans and Annabel Nanninga founded their own party, JA21. This also includes ex-FvD member Nicki Pouw-Verweij. At the time, she also sent a letter to the FvD party board, because party leader Thierry Baudet was said to have expressed himself anti-Semitic during a dinner.

‘Peripheral phenomena that I want to act against’

Two weeks ago, Baudet himself lost a lawsuit about the comparisons between the fate of Jews during the war and unvaccinated people in the current corona policy. The judge ordered him to delete tweets in which he calls unvaccinated “the new Jews” and MPs and ministers who support the corona policy “outcasters”, “new Nazis” and “NSB members.”

Hiddema says he is increasingly disturbed by his party members who use the Second World War to make a point, he told ANP news agency on Saturday. “These are peripheral phenomena that I want to act against.” Hiddema says that he has also let it be known “in the highest echelons” of his party that he is not served by his party’s references to the Second World War. For example, FVD leader Thierry Baudet regularly links the corona measures to the persecution of the Jews in the thirties and forties.

Hiddema also calls the tweet for which Baudet had to answer to the judge this month “repulsive.” According to Hiddema, he has regularly stated that he does not like these kinds of comparisons and does not want to be associated with them. He calls it “high time that those who operate the propaganda know that this will not go unnoticed.” He says that incidents like this also hinder his work as a lawyer. „I don’t want to get in the way with the question ‘How is your brain baggage doing?’ There has to be someone who says: guys, this shouldn’t be.”

‘Dumb, very stupid’

Hiddema often openly criticizes his party’s references to the war. In May, FvD made a poster for Liberation Day: ‘On May 5 we commemorate 75 years of freedom’. Below that were the years 1945-2020 with a death cross.

Hiddema called the action ‘stupid, very stupid’ and ‘not tasteful’. “I understand that you want to see the freedom-restricting measures in a broader context, but then don’t steal the logo of the May 4-5 movement. And thus do not relate the suffering of the Jews to the inconveniences of corona,” said the prominent FvD at the time. The May 5 poster was one of the reasons for Wybren van Haga, the former second man of Forum, to split off as well.

Although the Senate member is excited about the comparisons, he says he sees no reason to leave the party. According to him, FVD has a “wonderful program” outside of corona and the Second World War, and would be open to criticism from within.

‘Obsession’

“Joel has nothing to do with the Second World War – it is Hiddema who makes the comparison with WW2”, Forum for Democracy says when asked. The party states that the party is celebrated in the Netherlands as part of the Christmas tradition.

Christmas trees and mistletoes come according to the party of the Germanic feast. “The fact that an innocent Christmas picture is drawn in this atmosphere shows the obsession of the media with FVD.”

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