About the Event

The Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre invites you to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2026 with an evening of reflection, scholarship, and film.

The programme includes formal remarks, a candle-lighting ceremony, a keynote address by Professor Rolf Wolfswinkel, and a screening of the documentary Lost City—a powerful exploration of complicity, memory, and moral responsibility in wartime Amsterdam.

Keynote Speaker

Professor Rolf Wolfswinkel
Professor of Modern History (ret.), University of Cape Town & New York University

Born in Amsterdam during the Second World War, Professor Wolfswinkel has published widely on trench warfare in the First World War, the German occupation of the Netherlands, and the Holocaust. He has lectured extensively in South Africa, the United States, and the Netherlands, and is known for his ability to illuminate the human consequences of historical events through rigorous archival research.

About the Film: Lost City

A groundbreaking archival discovery reveals a hidden chapter in the tragic story of Anne Frank and tens of thousands of Dutch Jews: the complicity of the Amsterdam Public Transport company (GVB) in the Nazi deportation system.

Emmy Award–winning filmmaker Willy Lindwer and historian Guus Luijters uncovered an invoice issued by GVB to the German occupation authorities—charging 80 guilders (approximately $4,500 today) for transporting Anne Frank, her family, and many others to their deaths. In seeking payment for these transports, the company became an unwitting accomplice in Nazi crimes.

Presented as a poignant road movie, Lost City features the original tram used to deport 48,000 Jews from Amsterdam—nearly half of the Netherlands’ Jewish population—retracing its route through the city’s hauntingly beautiful yet morally burdened streets. A survivor’s reflection captures the collective indifference of the time:
“Everybody knew, everybody saw it, and nobody took action.”

The film offers a profound new perspective on the murder of Amsterdam’s Jews and the city’s enduring loss of its Jewish soul.

Attendance is free but booking is essential.