Dutch feminists campaign for national monument to ‘witches’

Thousands have been raised for site to commemorate victims of Satanic panic in 15th to 17th centuries

Three feminist campaigners in the Netherlands want to reclaim the insult “witch” and recognise the innocent victims of Dutch witch-hunts from the 15th to the 17th centuries with a national monument.

Susan Smit, Bregje Hofstede and Manja Bedner, the chair and board members of the National Witches Monument foundation, have raised €35,000 (£29,000) for an official site of memory for about 70,000 people who died during a Satanic panic that swept Europe and the Americas.