AMSTERDAM (NEWSnet/AP) — National Holocaust Museum opened Sunday in The Netherlands, with King Willem-Alexander and Israel President Isaac Herzog presiding at a ceremony.

The museum in Amsterdam tells the stories of some of the 102,000 Jews who were deported from Netherlands and murdered in Nazi camps, as well as the history of their structural persecution under German World War II occupation before deportation began.

The museum “gives a face and a voice to the Jewish victims of persecution in the Netherlands,” Willem-Alexander said in the address at the inaugural ceremony. It also “shows us the devastating consequences that antisemitism can have. That is why we must continue to be aware of how things began and how they went from bad to worse.”

Prior to the ceremony, Willem-Alexander and Herzog visited Amsterdam's Portuguese Synagogue.

Herzog hailed Netherlands' initiative to create a museum that he said is a testament to erasing antisemitism throughout the world.

“At this pivotal moment in time, this institution sends a clear powerful statement," Herzog said. "Remember! Remember the horrors born of hatred, antisemitism and racism, and never again allow them to flourish.”

The museum is housed in a former teacher training college that was used as a covert escape route to help some 600 Jewish children to escape from Nazis. Exhibits include a photo of a boy walking past bodies in Bergen-Belsen after the liberation of the concentration camp, and mementos of lives lost: a doll, an orange dress made from parachute material and a collection of 10 buttons excavated from the grounds of the Sobibor camp.

Herzog’s presence at the opening prompted protest because of Israel's offensive against Palestinians in Gaza.

Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered amid tightened security at Waterloo Square in Amsterdam, near the museum and the synagogue, waving Palestine flags, chanting against Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and demanding cease-fire in Gaza.

The protest leaders emphasized they were protesting against Herzog's presence, not the museum and what it commemorates.

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