© Beeldbank WO2 / NIOD
Cas Oorthuys - Mayor tries to forbid criticism of Nazi Germany
Jews are not allowed to take part in the 1936 Olympic Games in Nazi Germany. This also includes the fine art competition connected to the games.
Photographer Cas Oorthuys worked on an anti fascist exhibition D.O.O.D. (The Olympiad under dictatorship). Rejected artists and those who refuse to take part send their work in. Photographs and other pieces show what’s happening in Nazi Germany; censorship, book burning, persecution of Jews, racial delusion, forced sterilization, concentration camps and torture chambers.
The German Consul in Amsterdam is furious and the German Ambassador in The Hague is ready to step in. Mayor of Amsterdam Mr. De Vlugt uses a public order law to have 19 exhibits removed, mostly those about German migrants.
The German Consul finds the posters the most insulting, but the mayor sees no possibility of forbidding these but does prevent them being displayed on the municipal display pillars.
Source: Amsterdam by Cas Oorthuys, Flip Bool and Henk Raaff.
Cas Oorthuys
Cas Oorthuys is a photojournalist. During the war he is a member of the resistance and in September 1944 he joins the Ondergedoken Camera (Hidden Camera); a group of Dutch photographers who document the occupation. After the liberation Oorthuys becomes the photographer of the reconstruction of the country.
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