Interview with Pieter Slaman who received the LUS Education Prize. What makes the award so special to him and does he already know how he will use his prize money?

Emeritus professor Willem Otterspeer received a royal honour from mayor Henri Lenferink on Tuesday 20 September. The university historian was appointed Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau.

Using enslaved people as servants, becoming an administrator in the Dutch West India Company or making uniforms for the colonial army. Many people from Leiden played a role in colonialism and slavery. Historians are conducting preliminary research and finding striking examples.

From memorials to the armed forces to memory stones for individual victims. It was only later that the Holocaust took a central role in Western remembrance culture, Cleveringa Professor Frank van Vree notes. ‘Nationalists and human rights activists both invoke the experience of the Holocaust.’

Almost 81 years after his famous protest speech against the German occupation, Leiden professor Rudolph Pabus Cleveringa will be remembered in his Groningen birthplace of Appingedam. A statue of him will be unveiled there on 12 November amid various other activities.