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Lezing: Evacueren onder drones

• 22 October 2026
  • 19:15 – 22:00

Two thousand kilometres from Medemblik, something the museum knows from history is happening right now: civilians are living in a war they did not choose. In the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions, there are villages about ten kilometres from the front line. There is no electricity, no water and no shop. The people who still live there are often old, sick or too poor to get away themselves.

Dutch Civilian Action drives to these villages. Founder Bas Spijker will explain how his organisation works during the lecture. The foundation works together with five local evacuation teams that know the area well and know which roads are still passable.

This year, the teams are taking more than a thousand people out of areas where the Ukrainian government and large aid organisations no longer go because it has become too dangerous.

That danger is concrete: the evacuation teams are regularly attacked by FPV drones.

Nevertheless, Dutch Civilian Action continues to join evacuation missions. Every six weeks, a team from the foundation travels to Kramatorsk, Sloviansk and Charkiv to join evacuations themselves. Using footage from the teams, Spijker will show what that work looks like.

Help for people at the front

Dutch Civilian Action keeps the local evacuation teams on the road with armoured vans, ambulances and delivery vans. Less visible costs are also necessary to make the work possible, such as repairs and diesel.

After their evacuation, civilians receive help finding safe accommodation elsewhere in Ukraine. In addition, a truck with relief supplies leaves every month. These are intended for displaced persons, bombed front-line hospitals and civilians living fifteen to twenty-five kilometres from the fighting.

For Oorlogsmuseum Medemblik, the lecture is a way to support the charity while simultaneously connecting the past and the present. After receiving a tip from a resident of Medemblik about a charity she has been supporting for years, Oorlogsmuseum Medemblik has made the jaren ’40 Bioscoop-Theaterzaal available for this free of charge. The entire ticket proceeds from the lecture will go to Dutch Civilian Action.

It promises to be an intense evening, in which the war of today is brought close from the perspective of civilians. A war that is taking place two thousand kilometres away, but which brings the museum’s history uncomfortably close.