Friend of Anne Frank lays first stone of Amsterdam’s newest Holocaust monument

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — For a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor and friend of the renowned teenage diarist Anne Frank, laying the first brick for a new monument to victims of the genocide was a “special moment.”

“I’m satisfied that it’s finally happening,” Jacqueline van Maarsen told the ANP news agency on Wednesday with the launch of the Names Monument.

Van Maarsen was among several dozen people, including other Holocaust survivors, who gathered in Amsterdam to lay the first part of the building, which is designed to have about 102,000 bricks — one bearing the name of each of the Shoah’s identified victims in the Netherlands