KNM: geschiedenis en geografie

In Nederland 4 May is Remembrance Day (de Dodenherdenking). At 8 pm the whole country is silent (stil) for two minutes. The Dutch remember (herdenken) the people who died in the Second World War and in later wars. Flags hang at half-mast (halfstok). If you are outside at 8 pm, you stand still and are quiet too. Even public transport stands still when possible.

5 May is Liberation Day (Bevrijdingsdag). On 5 May 1945 the war ended in the Netherlands. People celebrate (vieren) freedom (de vrijheid) with festivals. Not everyone gets a day off; that depends on your contract.

The Second World War (de Tweede Wereldoorlog). Germany occupied the Netherlands from 1940 to 1945. The nazis murdered most of the Jews (de Joden) in the Netherlands, and also Sinti and Roma. This is the Holocaust. Anne Frank hid in a house in Amsterdam; you can visit it. Small brass stones in the pavement, the struikelstenen, show where victims lived.

Keti Koti on 1 July. People remember slavery (de slavernij) and celebrate its end in 1863 in Suriname and on the Caribbean islands. The Netherlands took part in the slave trade for a long time. In 2023 the King said sorry for this.

Show respect. Jokes about the Holocaust or slavery hurt people. Anyone may join a remembrance or a festival.

The map. Amsterdam is the capital (de hoofdstad). The government and parliament sit in Den Haag. A big part of the country is lower than the sea; dikes (de dijk) protect the land.

Here are the 12 provinces of the Netherlands and their capitals:

1. Drenthe: Assen
2. Flevoland: Lelystad
3. Friesland (Fryslân): Leeuwarden
4. Gelderland: Arnhem
5. Groningen: Groningen
6. Limburg: Maastricht
7. Noord-Brabant: 's-Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch)
8. Noord-Holland: Haarlem
9. Overijssel: Zwolle
10. Utrecht: Utrecht
11. Zeeland: Middelburg
12. Zuid-Holland: Den Haag ('s-Gravenhage)

The Kingdom of the Netherlands consists of four countries:

• the Netherlands
• Aruba
• Curaçao
• Sint Maarten

The Caribbean Netherlands (Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba) are different: they are special municipalities of the Netherlands itself, rather than separate countries within the Kingdom.

Component · KNM, official theme Geschiedenis en geografie.

• Task type · Multiple choice: a short situation or a photo (a monument, a flag, a map) and three answers. "Wat is waar?", "Wat doe je?"
• The real task · On the computer, 45 minutes, simple Dutch. Candidates must know what the Holocaust is; slavery and the colonial past are also part of the theme. DUO publishes no fixed number of questions or raw pass mark; prep providers work with about 40 questions.

Most common mistakes

1. Mixing up 4 mei (remembering the dead, two minutes of silence) and 5 mei (celebrating freedom).
2. Thinking the silence on 4 May is only for Dutch people or only at a monument. Everyone joins in, wherever they are.
3. Thinking the Netherlands had nothing to do with slavery.
4. Saying the government sits in the capital. Amsterdam is the capital; the government sits in Den Haag.