Liberation Day or as the Dutch call it - “Bevrijdingsdag” - is celebrated each year on the 5th of May to mark the end of the occupation by Nazi Germany. On this day in 1945, the German forces capitulated after mainly British, Canadian and American troops helped free the country from the murderous Nazi regime. While Liberation Day was only celebrated every 5 years after 1945, this changed in 1990 when the day was declared a national holiday which is to be commemorated every year. Since then, most people in the Netherlands spend this holiday by attending memorial services, parades or one of the 14 free music festivals taking place throughout the country.

But how does it feel to be in the Netherlands as a German student during Liberation Day? Does one feel uncomfortable, weird or even guilty?  Last year I read an article about how some German students in Groningen feel so uncomfortable on this day that they won’t even join in for the celebrations. Some even went as far as saying that as Germans they were always being viewed as “the bad guys” and feel like “offenders’’.

Being German myself and having lived in Groningen for nearly five years, I have never experienced such feelings of guilt or exclusion. And why should I? The second world war ended when my grandparents were still in elementary school and almost 50 years before I was born. Similarly to the irrational feeling of deriving national pride from achievements one did not contribute to, holding a sense of national guilt for something one is not personally responsible for is abstruse. The absence of guilt, however, does not mean there is an absence of responsibility. As a German, I feel particularly responsible for remembering and reminding people of the heinous crimes committed by the Nazis and their accomplices in order to prevent anything similar from ever occurring again. Yet, this responsibility is not solely confined to Germans, but extends over national borders and should be independent of where you were born.

Commemorating the victims of the Nazi terror and reminding ourselves, and others, how lucky we are to live in a democracy is exactly what liberation day is all about. In fact, Liberation Day gives all of us the opportunity to reflect on the meaning of freedom and remind ourselves of those people that up to this day have to endure oppression and violence. Being German, I am just as happy as anyone else in Europe that the Nazis were defeated and that democracy and freedom prevailed over an evil fascist dictatorship. And if this is not a reason to celebrate together, I don’t know what is.

So whether you are German, Dutch, Russian, Chinese, a global citizen or from Mars - celebrating Liberation Day is something everyone can partake in without feeling bad. Make sure to attend one of the numerous events held on Sunday and have a good time!

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