Playing tourist in Amsterdam

Since this was my third trip to Holland, it was nice to relax and enjoy time with TJ rather than racing around trying to see all of the major tourist sites. However, we did squeeze in a couple visits to Amsterdam, a mere twenty minute Uber ride from her digs. As we walked along the canals, which are everywhere, I noticed stumble stones in the pavement and pointed them out to TJ. I saw our first stumble stones when we visited Berlin in 2016.

Stolpersteine aka "stumbling stones" were created by a German artist who has now placed approximately 70,000 scattered throughout Europe in over 1,200 towns and cities as diminutive monuments of remembrance to victims of the Holocaust. Approximately four inches square and made of brass, each commemorates a victim outside their last known freely-chosen residence. The inscription on each stone begins "Here lived", followed by the victim's name, date of birth, and fate: internment, suicide, exile or, in the vast majority of cases, deportation and murder.

Below is Westerkerk, the church I remembered Anne mentioning (Westertoren) in her diary just a few days after they went into hiding. Completed in 1631, Anne wrote about hearing the chimes from the church's imposing bell tower ringing the hour, and that she found it reassuring. I don't know why I can recall this bit of minutiae from the diary I initially read so long ago, but there it is.

The last time I toured the Anne Frank house was with the husband and girls back in 2011. This time I got to actually stop and read all of the information and watch the videos since we didn't have our girls tapping their toes at the exit after they rushed through the hiding place. I first read Anne Frank's diary way back when I was in 8th grade in Mrs. Campbell's English class in the early 1980s. She didn't spare us many of the Holocaust's horrors, and man's inhumanity to man made a big impression on me. Twenty years later, I found myself teaching this same important piece of historical literature to my own 8th grade students. When I had the opportunity while living abroad, I scheduled tours of Dacchau and Auschwitz to allow our family to witness firsthand the horrors of Hitler's final solution. It's a sobering reminder, especially in light of what happened in Israel on October 7, 2023, that hate is alive and well in our modern world.

The week before touring the hiding place again, I picked up a copy of Hannah Pick-Goslar's book "My Friend Anne Frank" and read it before visiting the Anne Frank house. Sure enough, there on the wall in the snack shop, there was a picture that contained Anne and her playmates in a sand box that I recognized. The girl on the far left is Hannah, with Anne right next to her. Childhood friends, the girls crossed paths again at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Unlike Anne, Hannah survived the war and moved to British Mandate Palestine - now Israel - in 1947, which was what her father longed to do to escape Nazi persecution. She lived the life Anne and so many of their Jewish friends were denied, passing away in 2022 at the age of 93, surrounded by her family. It was an inspiring recollection of perseverance during this dark period in history.