Remembrance ceremony for students at Tilburg University’s war memorial
On the occasion of the Remembrance of the Dead on May 4, Karim Schelkens, Dean of the Tilburg School of Catholic Theology, and Sander Herbergs, president of the Tilburg student association St. Olof, laid flowers at the war memorial commemorating the twenty-two Tilburg students who lost their lives during the Second World War. They died following bombings, because of their resistance activities, in concentration camps, or as a result of forced labor and illness. The memorial, consisting of a memorial wall with photos and candles, is located in Cobbenhagen Building.
Karim Schelkens: “Commemorating the past is of great importance for every university, I think, if only because universities are like people, including all the contradictions and complexities associated with human idiosyncrasies. Like we ourselves, as individuals, institutions also share a past that does not exclusively consist of successes and triumphs. It includes moments of loss or pain, and the way we handle these experiences shows who we are. If we allow them to sink into oblivion, we deny part of ourselves. Similarly, it is important for the university to remember the loss of these students in a war, even though it happened a long time ago.”
“We can always learn from the hard times, and perhaps even more so today, at a moment when people’s humanity continues to be denied. It is essential that we realize that conflicts and polarization among people and between groups of people is not just something of the past. It hones our empathy, a much-needed quality. And it puts our views into perspective of the things that dominate the news today.”
Sander Herbergs: “We live in a time when we have the luxury of discussing different forms of freedom, but few of us realize what freedom truly means in times of war. The students who lost their lives are symbols of courage, sacrifice, and determination. Because they were prepared to fight for justice and freedom, even at the risk of their own lives, we no longer need to think about what freedom meant then. It opened doors for the present generations to expand the definition of freedom in the public debate.”
A website, launched by the Tilburg Cobbenhagen Center (TCC) in collaboration with the Tilburg Regional Archives and supported by student associations T.S.C. St. Olof and T.S.R. Vidar and Tilburg University’s Arts and Heritage Commission, is part of this memorial.
