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ABSTRACT
This article examines the relationship between the Far Right and Holocaust memory politics in the Netherlands through an in-depth analysis of the antisemitic and conspiratorial discourse of far-right politician Thierry Baudet and his party, Forum for Democracy (FvD). While the FvD positioned themselves as a victim of establishment politics from the outset, the party used their opposition to government COVID-19 policies to bolster the image of themselves as victim of state power as well as Jewish conspiracies.
This article argues that Baudet’s Holocaust relativization and his criticism of the evolving character of Dutch Holocaust memory are intimately tied to his and the FvD’s antisemitic worldview, in which Jews are to blame for the decline of a mythologized white, Christian Dutch nation. In this context, the FvD used Holocaust analogies on social media, in the Dutch parliament, and during rallies to simultaneously accuse Jews of exploiting a victim identity for moral legitimacy and to contest the government’s acknowledgment of Dutch collaboration and inclusion of Jewish experiences into a broader national narrative of the Second World War. In posing these challenges to the status of the Holocaust in contemporary memory politics, Baudet and the FvD attempt to rewrite Dutch history with the white, Christian population as the true bearers of Dutch heritage and identity. Examining the character and normalization of Holocaust relativization in a country still lauded internationally for its tolerance despite its delayed process of ‘coming to terms’ with its Holocaust past demonstrates the centrality of memory politics to far-right ideologies.
Acknowledgements
I gratefully acknowledge Adam Blackler and Nicolaas P. Barr for their helpful comments and engagement with this work.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 This article uses the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, whose working definition reads, “Antisemitism is discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews (or Jewish institutions as Jewish),” as the foundation for understanding contemporary forms of antisemitism. The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, https://jerusalemdeclaration.org.
2 Mark Rutte, “Speech by Prime Minister Mark Rutte at the National Commemoration at the Auschwitz Monument, Amsterdam,” Ministry of General Affairs, January 26, 2020, https://www.government.nl/documents/speeches/2020/01/26/speech-by-prime-minister-mark-rutte-at-the-national-commemoration-at-the-auschwitz-monument-amsterdam. King Willem-Alexander, “Speech by His Majesty King Willem-Alexander, National Remembrance Day, 4 May 2020,” May 4, 2020, https://www.royal-house.nl/documents/speeches/2020/05/04/speech-by-king-willem-alexander-national-remembrance-day-4-may-2020#.
3 Lars Rensmann argued in 2013 that antisemitism continues to play a central role in the construction of a new radical-right ideology, because it explains “the modern world and its crises.” The evolution of Dutch memory politics and the COVID-19 pandemic are understood as crises that can be exploited for right-wing votes.
4 Evelien Gans, “‘The Jew’ as Dubious Victim,” in Remco Ensel and Evelien Gans, (eds.), The Holocaust, Israel, and ‘the Jew’: Histories of Antisemitism in Postwar Dutch Society (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017).
5 Gans, p. 72.
6 Derk Walters, “Jodenhaat in Nederland,” NRC, March 27, 2019.
7 The clip posted by Dr. Marina Meeuwisse was widely discussed amongst Dutch Twitter users. It received 107 retweets, 107 quote tweets, and 438 likes. Meeuwisse (@mmeeuw), “Baudet vergelijkt de #Holocaust weer met #corona,” Twitter, video excerpt, March 12, 2022, https://twitter.com/mmeeuw/status/1502768290342526976.
8 For this case study, I analyzed Baudet and the FvD’s statements by placing them within the context of the country’s long road to “coming to terms” with their Holocaust past. This includes parsing out the language they use to frame this history and connecting themes within their multiple social-media statements to showcase the development of standard party talking points.
9 Here, I follow Dina Porat's argument that Holocaust denial or minimization is not the end goal, but rather serves as a means with which to present “the Jew” as a figure to be “scorned, distrusted, derided, and worse,” to allow the denier to “live in peace with himself and keep his pre-Holocaust world intact.” Dina Porat, “Holocaust Denial and the Image of the Jew, or: ‘They Boycott Auschwitz as an Israeli Product,’” in Alvin H. Rosenfeld, (ed.), Resurgent Antisemitism: Global Perspectives (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), p. 479.
10 A poll by Dit is de Dag and the Nederlands Dagblad found that only 2% of churchgoers vote for Forum for Democracy. A ChristenUnie candidate referred to Baudet’s unsuccessful peddling of “cultural Christianity” in response to the poll. “‘Dit is waarom Forum voor Democratie slecht scoort onder christenen,’” NPO, March 6, 2021, https://www.nporadio1.nl/nieuws/politiek/6c28b384-1ba1-477a-966c-19e6bba0ae2b/dit-is-waarom-forum-voor-democratie-slecht-scoort-onder-christenen. For a discussion of cultural Christianity and European identity, see Anja Hennig and Oliver Fernando Hidalgo, “Illiberal Cultural Christianity? European Identity Constructions and Anti-Muslim Politics,” Religions 12, no. 9 (2021).
11 On the use of far right memory politics, see Jason Stanley, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (New York: Random House, 2018); Cas Mudde, The Far Right Today (Cambridge, Polity Press, 2021); Daniel Rueda, “A Certain Idea of France’s Past: Marine Le Pen’s History Wars,” European Politics and Society (April 2022): pp. 1–16, https://doi.org/10.1080/23745118.2022.2058751; and Dalya Soffer, “The Use of Collective Memory in the Populist Messaging of Marine Le Pen,” Journal of European Studies 52, no. 1 (2022), https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441211072619.
12 Michelle Lynn Kahn, “Antisemitism, Holocaust Denial, and Germany’s Far Right: How the AfD Tiptoes around Nazism,” The Journal of Holocaust Research 36, no. 2–3 (2022): pp. 164–185.
13 Maurice Martin argues that Jean-Marie Le Pen, rather than Cliteur, should be understood as Baudet’s intellectual godfather. Martin, “Hoe Thierry Baudet aan de Lippen hing van Jean-Marie Le Pen,” De Correspondent, February 18, 2018, https://decorrespondent.nl/7955/hoe-thierry-baudet-aan-de-lippen-hing-van-jean-marie-le-pen/811713530980-29774dcf.
14 “Standpunten,” Forum Voor Democratie, fvd.nl/standpunten.
15 Merijn Oudenampsen, The Rise of the New Dutch Right: An Intellectual History of the Rightward Shift in Dutch Politics (London: Routledge, 2021), p. 211.
16 Mudde, p. 24. I apply Mudde’s conceptualization of extreme right defined as an ideology that “believes that inequalities are natural and outside of the purview of the state.”
17 On the internal controversies, see “Brief over Baudet Vol Ruzie en Complottheorieën,” NOS, November 25, 2020, https://nos.nl/artikel/2358110-brief-over-baudet-vol-ruzie-en-complottheorieen; Ton F. van Dijk, “FvD-jongeren ‘Fascistisch’ en ‘Antisemitisch’ in Appgroepen,” HP/De Tijd, April 28, 2020, https://www.hpdetijd.nl/2020-04-28/forum-voor-democratie-jongeren-fascistisch-en-antisemitisch-in-app-groep/.
18 Freek Jansen is currently the FvD treasurer.
19 Oudenampsen, pp. 212, 208.
20 Léonie de Jonge, “Is the (Mass) Party Really Over? The Case of the Dutch Forum for Democracy,” Politics and Governance 9, no. 4 (2021): pp. 286–295.
21 Harm Ede Botje and Mischa Cohen, Mijn Meningen zijn Feiten: De Wording van Thierry Baudet (Amsterdam: Atlas Contact, 2020), p. 10.
22 Léonie de Jonge and Elizaveta Gaufman, “The Normalization of the Far Right in the Dutch Media in the Run-up to the 2021 General Elections,” Discourse & Society (June 2022): p. 3, https://doi.org/10.1177/09579265221095418.
23 Asha ten Broeke, “Waarom we Baudet een Fascist Moeten Noemen,” Asha ten Broeke Blog, February 23, 2018, https://ashatenbroeke.nl/waarom-we-baudet-een-fascist-moeten-noemen/.
24 Thierry Baudet, “Gastopinie Thierry Baudet: Buitengewoon Triest,” NIW, July 17, 2020, https://niw.nl/gastopinie-thierry-baudet-buitengewoon-triest/; “#KeppelOp: CIDI Organiseert Succesvolle Manifestatie tegen Antisemitisme,” CIDI Blog, May 29, 2019, cidi.nl/keppelop-cidi-organiseert-succesvolle-manifestatie-tegen-antisemitisme/.
25 Hella Rottenberg, “Opinie: CIDI en NIW Zagen Antisemitisme Baudet door de Vingers,” De Volkskrant, November 30, 2020, https://www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opinie/opinie-cidi-en-niw-zagen-antisemitisme-baudet-door-de-vingers~b1053259/.
26 Jelena Subotic, “Antisemitism in the Global Populist International,” The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 24, no. 3 (2021): p. 12.
27 Thierry Baudet (@thierrybaudet), “Jullie gezag geldt niet meer over mij,” Twitter, August 14, 2022, https://twitter.com/thierrybaudet/status/1558867571318947844.
28 Tamir Bar-On and Bàrbara Molas, eds., Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic by the Radical Right (Berlin: ibid Verlag, 2020).
29 Agnes Batory, “More Power, Less Support: The Fidesz Government and the Coronavirus Pandemic in Hungary,” Government and Opposition (2022), doi:10.1017/gov.2022.3; Pola Lehmann and Lisa Zehnter, “The Self-Proclaimed Defender of Freedom: The AfD and the Pandemic,” Government and Opposition; Bernard Forchtner and Özgür-Özvatan, “Is Germany’s AfD Using Covid-19 Measures to its Benefit? Countering the Radical Right, OpenDemocracy, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/countering-radical-right/is-germanys-afd-using-covid-19-measures-to-its-benefit/.
30 Mira Oklobdzija, “Thierry Loves Corona,” Foreign Policy in Focus, December 3, 2021, https://fpif.org/thierry-loves-corona/.
31 Jakub Wondreys and Cas Mudde, “Victims of the Pandemic? European Far-Right Parties and COVID-19,” Nationalities Papers 50, no.1 (2022): pp. 86–103.
32 “The Great Reset,” World Economic Forum, https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/; Ciarán O’Connor, “The Spread of the ‘Great Reset’ Conspiracy in the Netherlands,” Digital Dispatches, Institute for Strategic Dialogue, February 23, 2021, https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/the-spread-of-the-great-reset-conspiracy-in-the-netherlands/.
33 Esther Webman, “Hate and Absurdity: The Impact of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” in Esther Webman, (ed.), The Global Impact of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion: A Century-Old Myth (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 2. While the Protocols emerged in the late 1890s, the ideas underpinning the document rest upon centuries old anti-Jewish prejudices. For more on the Protocols and their historical roots, see Binjamin W. Segel and Richard S. Levy, A Lie and A Libel: The History of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995); Stephan E. Bronner, A Rumor about the Jews: Reflections on Antisemitism and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000); and Steven Zipperstein, Pogrom: Kishinev and the Tilt of History (New York: Norton, 2018).
34 O’Connor, “The Spread of the ‘Great Reset’ Conspiracy in the Netherlands.”
35 Daniel Levy and Natan Sznaider, The Holocaust and Memory in the Global Age (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006), pp. 4–5, 134–135; Robert Fine, “Fighting with Phantoms: A Contribution to the Debate on Antisemitism in Europe,” Patterns of Prejudice 43, no. 4 (2009): p. 463. Alon Confino, “The Holocaust as a Symbolic Manual: The French Revolution, the Holocaust, and Global Memories,” in Amos Goldberg and Haim Hazan, (eds.), Marking Evil: Holocaust Memory in the Global Age (New York: Berghahn Books, 2015).
36 Dr. Marina Meeuwisse (@mmeeuw), “In de documentaire die in #TheaterTuschinski in premiere gaat, is #Holocaust- bagatelliserend #fvd kamerlid Gideon van Meijeren,” Twitter, video excerpt, March 12, 2022, https://twitter.com/mmeeuw/status/1502614718594355200/.
37 Meeuwisse, “In de documentaire die in #TheaterTuschinski.” Deborah Lipstadt examines Richard Harwood’s 1974 book, Did Six Million Really Die? The Truth at Last, and his conclusion that only 300,000 victims were killed in prisons and concentration camps in her monograph, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on History and Memory (New York: Plume, 1994), p. 117.
38 “Joodse Organisaties Roepen Den Haag op: Stop met de Vergelijking Tussen de Holocaust en Covid-19,” NIW, September 19, 2021, https://niw.nl/joodse-organisaties-roepen-den-haag-op-stop-met-de-vergelijking-tussen-de-holocaust-en-covid-19/.
39 “Joodse Organisaties Roepen Den Haag op.”
40 Thierry Baudet (@thierrybaudet), “Beste Joodse organisaties,” Twitter, September 19, 2021. tweet deleted, screenshot in author’s possession.
41 Yehuda Bauer argues that the creation of a “usable past” relies upon Holocaust distortion because nationalists require a positive historical image of the past to draw upon to indoctrinate the population. Bauer, “Creating a ‘Usable’ Past: On Holocaust Denial and Distortion,” Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs 14, no. 2 (2020): p. 215.
42 Thierry Baudet (@thierrybaudet), “Diep geraakt door de nieuwsbrief van @mauricedehond,” Twitter, November 14, 2021. Tweet, screenshot in author’s possession.
43 Lars Rensmann details the multiple forms that antisemitic tropes take in his article, “The Contemporary Globalization of Political Antisemitism,” Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism 3, no. 1 (2020): pp. 83–107. For more on the association between Jews and greed, see: Jonathan Karp, “Antisemitism in the Age of Mercantilism,” in Albert S. Lindermann and Richard S. Levy, (eds.), Antisemitism: A History (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 94–106.
44 Federico Finchelstein, A Brief History of Fascist Lies (Oakland: University of California Press, 2020), p. 98.
45 Dr. Marina Meeuwisse (@mmeeuw), “Baudet vergelijkt de #Holocaust weer met #corona,” Twitter, video excerpt, March 12, 2022, https://twitter.com/mmeeuw/status/1502768290342526976.
46 Meeuwisse, “Baudet vergelijkt de #Holocaust.”
47 Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, “The Rise of Illiberal Memory,” Memory Studies (February 2021): pp. 1–18, https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698020988771.
48 Meeuwisse, “Baudet vergelijkt de #Holocaust.”
49 Thierry Baudet (@thierrybaudet), “Klopt. Dus WO2 wordt continu door de heersende kliek aangewend en gebruikt om de eigen plannen te legitmeren en critici te brandmerken,” Twitter, May 4, 2022, https://twitter.com/thierrybaudet/status/1521899305451327488.
50 Thierry Baudet, “Over het Nut van “Ophef”. Waarom FvD de Mediamacht niet Schuwt,” Forum voor Democratie, May 9, 2021, https://fvd.nl/nieuws/over-het-nut-van-ophef.
51 For more on this, see Lothar Probst, “Founding Myths in Europe and the Role of the Holocaust,” New German Critique, no. 90 (2003): pp. 45–58; Tuuli Lähdesmäki, “Founding Myths of EU Europe and the Workings of Power in the EU Heritage and History Initiatives,” European Journal of Culture Studies 22, nos. 5–6 (2018), https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494187559; Chiara De Cesari, Ivo Bosilkov, and Arianna Piacentini, “(Why) do Eurosceptics Believe in a Common European Heritage,” in Chiara De Cesari and Ayhan Kaya, (eds.), European Memory in Populism: Representations of Self and Other, (London: Routledge, 2020), pp. 26–46.
52 The Council of Europe asserts, “The Holocaust is a European heritage which has common roots in the European nations, and therefore is a European responsibility that should be accepted”, https://www.coe.int/en/web/holocaust/holocaust-remembrance-day.
53 Thierry Baudet (@theirrybaudet), “Alles en iedereen die andere opvattingen heeft dan die, welke gevestigde macht ons voorschrift, leerd kortom ‘de lessen van ’40–‘45’ niet,” Twitter, May 4, 2022, https://twitter.com/thierrybaudet/status/1521900210808672256. For more on this tweet thread, see Jazmine Contreras and Nicolaas P. Barr, “Russa, the Dutch Far Right, and the Politics of World War II Remembrance,” The New Fascism Syllabus, July 7, 2022, http://newfascismsyllabus.com/opinions/ukrainian-dispatches/russia-the-dutch-far-right-and-the-politics-of-world-war-ii-remembrance/.
54 “Identiteitspolitiek,” Standpunten, Forum voor Democratie, https://fvd.nl/standpunten/identiteitspolitiek.
Additional information
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Jazmine D. Contreras
Jazmine D. Contreras is a scholar of Modern Europe. Her research examines the contemporary character of Holocaust memory in the Netherlands through an analysis of monuments, museums, commemorations, and educational initiatives. This work has been funded by Goucher College and the German Historical Institute in Amsterdam. Her next project explores the relationship between the Far Right and Holocaust memory politics in the Netherlands.