WSN pre­sents a photo-es­say by Sikh archivist Bhupin­der Singh Hol­land of the re­cent Am­s­ter­dam event where trib­utes were paid to those who died fight­ing in World War II.

King Willem-Alexan­der of the King­dom of the Nether­lands, Mr. Mark Rutte- the Prime Min­is­ter of the Nether­lands, other Min­is­ters, Mil­i­tary Gen­er­als, the Mayor of Am­s­ter­dam, fam­i­lies of the mar­tyrs and many Dutch peo­ple re­mem­bered and paid flo­ral trib­utes at the Na­tional Mon­u­ment, Dam Square, Am­s­ter­dam early this month on 4 May 2019. Two min­utes si­lence was ob­served through­out  the coun­try at 20:00 hours.

On be­half of the hun­dreds of Sikhs who laid down their lives as part of the British-In­dian im­pe­ri­al­ist army and who played a sig­nif­i­cant role in pro­tect­ing the Dutch in the World War II, es­pe­cially in In­done­sia, Bhupin­der Singh Hol­land, Jagvir Singh, Ki­ran­deep Kaur and Man­preet Kaur laid the flow­ers as a mark of re­spect for their fore­fa­ther’s par­tic­i­pa­tion and con­tri­bu­tion.

Nether­lands recog­nises the con­tri­bu­tion of the Sikh sol­diers in Eu­rope and In­done­sia as many Eu­ro­peans in­clud­ing the Dutch Cit­i­zens were res­cued by the Sikh sol­diers dur­ing and af­ter World War II.

Dutch Sikhs, who are of­fi­cially in­vited to pay trib­ute by the Dutch gov­ern­ment, also joined the hun­dreds of Dutch peo­ple, have been do­ing their bit to keep mem­o­ries alive since 1999.

It is es­ti­mated that as many as 250,000 Dutch peo­ple lost their lives in World War II. Many of these died to pre­serve peace mis­sion in other parts of the world.

FLO­RAL TRIB­UTES PHOTO GALLERY: