Every year on 5 May, the Netherlands celebrates Liberation Day. Marking the end of Nazi occupation after five years of war. It is a day of festivals and freedom, following the silence of national remembrance on 4 May. But freedom can also be understood through the places where it once disappeared. Streets, stations, schools and stadiums all carried the weight of occupation. Dutch stadiums in World War II show this with unusual clarity. Built for crowds to gather they could suddenly become places of fear and control. In Rotterdam, Utrecht and Eindhoven, football grounds revealed how deeply war had entered ordinary life.

De Kuip and the stadium as an assembly point

De Kuip was built to gather Rotterdam. Its wide bowl, open sightlines and sweeping stands were made for movement and noise. In normal times the stadium turned thousands of separate people into one football crowd. In November 1944, that same power was turned against the city.

On 10 and 11 November, German forces carried out the Rotterdam razzia known as Aktion Rosenburg. Rotterdam and nearby Schiedam were sealed off without warning. Men aged 17 to 40 were ordered to report under the threat of violence. Around 120,000 men in that age group were registered in the two cities, but many were already absent because of earlier forced labour measures. Through the Arbeitseinsatz, the German occupier forced Dutch men to work in factories, agriculture and infrastructure projects. Of the roughly 70,000 men still present, about 52,000 were taken. It was among the largest roundups of occupied Europe.

The men were first gathered by street or neighbourhood, then moved to larger assembly points across the city. There were eleven in total. The largest was Stadion Feijenoord, better known as De Kuip.

Held in De Kuip

That detail changes the way one looks at the stadium. De Kuip was not a backdrop to the razzia. It became part of it. Its gates and enclosed stands made it useful to the occupier. Thousands of men could be pushed inside, held together and guarded. The pitch became a place of fear and waiting. From the first ring soldiers with machine guns watched over the men below.

The silence must have felt unnatural. De Kuip was supposed to echo. It was supposed to roar. Now men stood in mud and the cold autumn rain, unsure where they would be sent. Unsure whether they would see their families again. Some had been taken with brothers, neighbours or future in laws. Many tried to stay together. Staying together gave at least a small feeling of protection.

Taken from Rotterdam

From Rotterdam the journey split in several directions. Around 20,000 men were marched away on foot, some towards Delft and others towards Amersfoort. Around 20,000 were taken by ship from the city’s harbours. Around 10,000 were moved by train from Rotterdam Zuid and station Delftsche Poort. Some ended up in the eastern Netherlands, but most were sent to Germany, where they were forced to repair railway lines repeatedly bombed by the Allies.

A drawing of the transport of the men from the personal documents of razzia victim Arie Botschrijver. Archive 273a, number 2022-19.

More than 500 men did not survive deportation. Many died from hunger, cold, illness, accidents or bombardments. Those who returned often came back weakened and silent. Their suffering was not always understood. In a city already scarred by the bombing of 1940 and then consumed by reconstruction, the razzia became a trauma that many families carried quietly.

In November 1944, it gathered men who had no choice. But De Kuip was not the only Dutch stadium where the meaning of the crowd changed during the occupation. In Utrecht, another ground showed how the same architecture of mass attention could be used in a very different way.

Stadion Galgenwaard and the stadium as a stage

A stadium is built to direct attention. Every stand looks toward the same centre. Every entrance, stairway and open space helps turn scattered people into one visible crowd. In Utrecht that power was taken over by the Nationaal Socialistische Beweging, the Dutch Nazi movement known as the NSB. The NSB held their headquarters in Utrecht and used Stadion Galgenwaard for their gatherings. 

Its leader was Anton Mussert, the most prominent Dutch collaborator of the war. On his birthday, the movement turned Utrecht into a political stage. Mussert inspected uniformed WA men before a parade on the Maliebaan, a broad avenue in the city. After that he moved to Stadion Galgenwaard.

Mussert’s verjaardag, by Filmdienst der NSB/Tobis Profilti, via Open Beelden, marked with a Public Domain Mark.

There, the meaning of the stadium changed. This was not a football crowd gathering for DOS or Hercules. It was a staged display of loyalty, discipline and power. The pitch became a platform. The stands became scenery. The same architecture that normally carried sport was now used to magnify propaganda. It was one of several moments in which the NSB used Galgenwaard to turn politics into spectacle.

That is what makes Galgenwaard so important in this story. The stadium was not destroyed and it did not stop being a sports ground. Its danger was quieter. For certain days under occupation, a place built for public life was used to perform political control.

Philips Sportpark and the stadium as a trap

From Utrecht the story moves south to Eindhoven, where a stadium was not used to display power before a crowd, but to close in on one after a match had already begun. On 27 February 1944 PSV played LONGA from Tilburg in one of the biggest matches of the southern football season. PSV still had a chance to overtake its rival and move towards the regional title. In a country under occupation, football offered a rare form of escape. That afternoon around 20,000 people came to the sports park in Eindhoven. The ground was so crowded that extra places had been added.

The match gave them what they came for. PSV won 2-1, with Miel d’Hooghe scoring both goals. But while the football still held the crowd’s attention, the space around them had already changed. German soldiers and Dutch collaborators surrounded the sports park. The gates were closed. Men could not simply leave.

The target was not the match itself. The occupier was looking for young men avoiding the Arbeitseinsatz, the forced labour programme that sent Dutch men to work in Germany. The logic was similar to the Rotterdam razzia. Find men, isolate them, and force them into labour. Resistance groups had warned people that large events were dangerous. A stadium gathered exactly the kind of crowd the Germans wanted to control. Still, the importance of the game drew people in.

When the exits became checkpoints 

Then came the announcement over the loudspeakers. Male visitors had to stay and show their papers. Panic spread through the stands. The afternoon had turned cold and snow began to fall. The same gates that should have released the crowd back into Eindhoven became checkpoints. A football ground had become a trap.

Yet the trap did not close as the occupier intended. Spectators hid under stands, in dressing rooms, storage spaces and nearby homes. Some were helped by stadium staff, local residents and Dutch police officers who quietly looked the other way or opened another route out. PSV players themselves hid inside parts of the stadium, while some men escaped by blending into places where the Germans did not expect to find them.

The raid lasted until the evening. Around 20,000 people had been held under threat, but the result was almost empty for the occupier. Sources differ on the exact number arrested, from none to only a few. Even those few were reportedly released later. History may remember the raid as a failure for the German occupier. But  the people trapped inside Philips Sportpark stood in fear and uncertainty, waiting to find out whether a matchday had become the moment they would be taken away. 

Freedom

On 5 May, freedom is often remembered through flags, speeches and public celebration. But these Dutch stadiums in World War II show freedom from another angle. At De Kuip, it meant not being gathered by force. At Stadion Galgenwaard, it meant public space not being turned into political fascist theatre. At Philips Sportpark, it meant leaving a football match without fear of being checked, trapped or taken away.

That is what makes stadiums such powerful places of memory. They are built for ordinary life, movement and the release of a crowd after the final whistle. War changed that. The pitch became an assembly point, the stands became scenery, and the gates became checkpoints. Their return to sport matters because freedom also lives in simple things. To gather by choice. To stand among others without fear. To walk out when the match is over. To be free.