Toespraak staatssecretaris Fleur Gräper-van Koolwijk tijdens de Unesco-conferentie over bescherming van cultureel erfgoed

Toespraak | 15-05-2024

Good afternoon everyone.

It is an honor to be here today, surrounded by so many custodians of cultural heritage.

The last few days, you have worked hard to ensure that cultural heritage is preserved and protected during armed conflict.

Important work.

Vital work.

After all, cultural heritage is worth protecting, and needs its defenders.

People like you.

Because cultural heritage does not have legs, and cannot stand up for itself.

Yet, we all need cultural heritage.

From books to buildings and paintings: they all give us a sense of self.

Cultural heritage shows us where we come from, who we are and inspires us to become who we want to be.  

It shapes us.

It is that one windmill that you always cycle past on your way home.

It is that place of worship in your town square, that always gives you a sense of homecoming.

Or that one painting which you can gaze at for the longest time and lose yourself in.

Talking about cultural heritage, does anyone happen to know what stood here on this very ground about a hundred years ago?

Not an event venue, like today, but a church.

The Duinoord church, to be exact.

Founded in 1920, it had beautiful stained glass windows showing the twelve apostles.

And a mosaic featuring the Last Supper.

The church was filled with a pulpit, chandeliers and wooden benches.

And, of course, people who gathered here for weekly sermons, sharing their visions on life and strengthening their sense of community.

Until 1942.

That was the year the church was dismantled, brick by brick.

During the Second World War, occupying forces destroyed a lot of buildings in The Hague to make way for a more than five thousand-kilometer defensive wall that ran along the coastline of Western Europe to repel attacks by the Allied forces.

Throughout The Hague, you can still see the effects of this defensive wall.

Also here, at the World Forum.

A beautiful building in its own right, but with no stained glass windows, pulpit or wooden church benches.

Which can leave you wondering: well, what happened to them?

Thankfully, people gave these cultural goods temporary legs.

They carried them away from here, and stowed them – safe and sound – in the basement of the Peace Palace in The Hague.  

There, they survived the Second World War.

And these interior elements of the church were then transferred into the medieval Klooster church, also in The Hague.

Where people can see and experience them to this day.

Dear guests,

The cultural goods within the Duinoord church were preserved.

Unfortunately, not all cultural heritage survived the Second World War.

Much was destroyed, or looted.

Which is the main reason the Hague Convention was developed in this very city seventy years ago by people from around the world.

They saw the urgent need to protect cultural heritage.

To make the necessary preparations in times of peace.

To convey the message that parties that are at war, have an obligation to protect cultural heritage.

One sentence from the then formulated agreement sticks in my mind.

It reads: ‘Being convinced that damage to cultural property belonging to any people whatsoever means damage to the cultural heritage of all mankind, since each people makes its contribution to the culture of the world.’

A sentence that rings true to this day.

And that is still painfully relevant.

Because even now, wars are taking place all over the world.

They demand many casualties.

Lives are lost every day.

Ending them far too early and abruptly.

Also in the cultural field casualties can be found, despite the work of people who have successfully secured items such as antiquities, paintings and manuscripts.

Yet cultural properties have also been damaged, looted and destroyed in recent years.

Often deliberately, neglecting the basic principles of the Hague Convention.

Cultural casualties come in many different shapes and sizes.

Such as the deliberate destruction of a theatre, the bombing of a cemetery or the theft of a painting.

At first glance, people might think: it is just a theatre, just a cemetery or just a painting.

Things that are replaceable.

But that is just the thing: they are not replaceable.

When that piece of cultural heritage is no longer there, you can feel uprooted.

Because your identity is so intimately intertwined with that cultural property.

Which is why it is so important that we keep cultural heritage safe.

We saw that need seventy years ago, and we unfortunately still see it today.

That is why you have spent the last few days addressing essential questions, such as what is required of us to keep cultural heritage safe in this world that has changed so much over the past seven decades.

What is needed not only now, but also in the future.

And I want to thank you all for your input, invaluable advice and recommendations: from the attendees to the experts, observers, speakers and moderators.

And a big thank you is in order for UNESCO, who organized this event with us.

And I also commend UNESCO for taking the initiative of a new civil military alliance.

I call on all of us to bring this initiative to fruition.

Before you all leave and return home, I also want to ask something of all of you: continue to reach out and engage with each other.

See what you can learn from each other, and keep gaining new insights.

Together, we have the best chance to defend cultural heritage from the horrors of war.

To defend who we are and what we stand for.

Let’s continue to stand up for cultural heritage.

For ourselves and for generations to come.

Thank you!