Commemoration ceremony in Middelharnis

09 December, 2019

On December 9, a commemoration ceremony dedicated to the memory of Armenian soldiers killed by the Nazi forces took place in Middelharnis. 75 years ago, the Armenian prisoners of war, working closely with the resistance movement in the Netherlands, attempted a revolt, and the next day they were executed by the Nazi forces.
The commemoration ceremony was attended by Mr. Alexander Shulgin, Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Netherlands, Mr. Stanislav Vasilevsky, Chargé d'Affaires of Belarus to the Netherlands, Mrs. Tea Both-Verhoeven, Deputy Head of Municipality of Goeree-Overflakkee (Middelharnis is in Goeree-Overflakkee administrative district), Colonel Suren Darbinyan, Military Attaché of Armenia to NATO, Colonel Mikhail Klimuk, Military Attaché of the Russian Federation to the Netherlands, Captain Volodimir Denisov, Military Attaché of Ukraine to the Netherlands, heads of Armenian community organizations in the Netherlands, descendants of the Armenian prisoners of war and Dutch historians.
Addressing the participants of the commemoration ceremony, Ambassador Tigran Balayan noted that Armenians played a unique role in the liberation of the Netherlands, fighting the Nazis together with their supporters. Ambassador Balayan thanked the Goeree-Overflakkee authorities for commemorating the memory of Armenian soldiers and for treating the monument with care.
"Symbolically, in 2015, by the initiative of Armenia, the UN General Assembly marked this day as the International Day of Remembrance and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and the International Day for the Prevention of the Crime of Genocide. And symbolically, the seven soldiers killed here on the same day contributed to the overthrow of one of the genocidal regimes,”- Ambassador Balayan said. After the speech, pastor Taron Tadevosyan of the Holy Spirit Armenian Apostolic Church in Amsterdam, laid a funeral service.
After the memorial service a reception took place, during which historian Joris Versteeg presented a story of a prisoner of war who claimed to have been a Jewish soldier, but the Armenian soldiers presented him as an Armenian, thus preserving his life for about three years.
An article published on the occasion of Remembrance Day, the Dutch Public Television states that in total there were about 4000 Armenians in the Netherlands as prisoners of war. The Armenian POWs did their best to harm the Nazis and were in close contact with the Dutch resistance movement, they were instructed to do the most difficult acts as the Armenian POWs were distinguished by courage and cold-heartedness.

MFA RA
official website

Dual citizenship

Electronic visa

Visa applications