De Razzia Van '44 Bezongen

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The music theater performance De Rotterdamse Razzia van '44 Besungen features stories and songs about the forced laborers who were deported from Rotterdam and Schiedam during the great raid of November 10 and 11, 1944.

Master storyteller Roland Vonk and actress Daisy Hagendoorn bring history to life. Most of the songs that are played were probably last played in a German barracks or at a reunion shortly after the war. Some texts have not even been accompanied by music; which was written by the gentlemen of trio De Flamingo's: Peter de Koning (double bass), Ted Koninkx (guitar) and Pieter Ubbels (saxophone), supplemented by Erik de Reus on piano, who also made the arrangements.

The raid

During the roundup, some 52,000 young men were arrested and put to work in Germany. After the war they returned to a home front that survived the hunger winter and six months of radio silence. If only they had survived (almost five hundred Rotterdammers did not make it). Those who did come home were silent.

Years later it became clear how traumatized the men returned. The songs and jokes, written and recorded in Germany to keep people's spirits up, no longer fulfill that function at home during the Reconstruction. Here no one is looking for their self-invented amusement and melancholy. There is work to be done here.

After the bombing of Rotterdam, it is the second largest event in the city's recent history.

The Razzia monument

The reason for the performance was the official unveiling of the Razzia monument in November 2023 in commemoration of the victims from Rotterdam and Schiedam. The monument, a work of art created by Rotterdam resident Anne Wenzel, is an initiative of two sons of Rotterdam forced laborers: René Versluis and Jan Willem Cleijpool. It is located in the park next to the Van Ommerenhaventje on the Parkkade in Rotterdam. More info here .