Hundreds of people are queuing in the center of Amsterdam to say goodbye to Peter R. de Vries. Because of the bright sun, the municipality hands out water to the waiting public.
The queue is hundreds of meters long and the waiting time, according to the police, was 3 hours at one point. By 2 p.m., the municipality said people who joined at the back will have to queue for another 1.5 to 2 hours.
The doors of the theater opened around 10:45 am and close at 8:00 pm. Carré may remain open longer to give everyone the chance to say goodbye. Inside is the coffin with the body of the murdered crime reporter, surrounded by flowers from loved ones.
A man was already there around 7 a.m., one of the first. “I didn’t want to queue too long with that heat,” he says. He calls De Vries a hero. “I’m very sorry, it hurts me very much,” says a lady further down the line. “It’s heartbreaking, it gives me goosebumps.”
Hundreds of people stand in line, emotions run high when they leave the theater:
The relatives of De Vries ask people who want to say goodbye to make a donation to The Golden Tip Foundation. This fundraiser is intended to solve the disappearance of Tanja Groen from 1993.
Friends, family and others who knew the crime reporter personally will say goodbye privately at 11 a.m. tomorrow. Then all major radio stations will also play De Vries’ favorite song: A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum.
Peter R. de Vries was shot in the center of Amsterdam on July 6 after a broadcast of RTL Boulevard in which he performed. He died last Thursday as a result of the attack.
Watch a look back at De Vries’s life here: