Category Archives: Amsterdam Moments

Amsterdam Moments

These Amsterdam Moments will give you glimpses of the city as it is in our time, and as it was in 1940-45. Over time, I’ll post my own photographs, and historic photos in the public domain from 1940-45, with a brief comment so you know what you are seeing and why it’s significant.

A First Visit Back to Amsterdam’s Dockworker

As soon as I arrived in Amsterdam, I wanted to pay my respects to the Dockworker, the symbolic figure of the February Strike, the only general strike in Western Europe to protest the first roundup of Jewish people. I was sad not to get here a week earlier for the commemoration on February 25, but the flowers laid at that time were still there. As impressive as the big official wreaths are, personally I am always most moved by the little bunches of tulips laid right by his feet. And you wonder who has brought each one, and exactly why – because of a grandparent, someone who knew someone, a friend? Because of the kind of connection I have, which is not genetic or even circumstantial, but something else? I was so glad to go and stand by the Dockworker again. It is a ritual that I must complete every time I’m here, a touchstone. Attending the commemoration the first time gripped me emotionally in a way that has never let me go. I know so much more than I did that day in 2001, and feel so much more sorrow now that I understand more of the extent of the Holocaust here and how it devastated the city. I know that only a small percentage of the 300,000 people who went on strike that day actually engaged in further resistance. But I still honor them for that day. The strikers push and prod me to do the right thing in my own time, and I feel their presence wherever I am, especially at this time of year. If you’d like to know more about the Strike, it’s here.

An Audacious Singer at Amsterdam’s Most Eccentric Museum

What told singer Mattanja van den Bos, a mere mortal who can’t be more than thirty years old if that, that she could attempt to sing Schubert’s great last work, the Winter Songs? It’s usually done by a baritone, especially given that it is a desolate series about a lost female love and wandering around in the cold. People make whole careers out of the piano accompaniment alone. But van den Bos decided she could do both, and how right she was! She strode out in a hiker’s cap carrying a heavy wooden staff, explained her intentions in Dutch, put down her paraphernalia and went to work on the Winter Songs. Apart from singing and playing simultaneously, she even turned the pages herself. It was a tour de force. Every single song – and there is a wide variety, from determined striding to heartbreaking self-scourging and beyond – was rendered with such feeling, but never too much. I learned later that this was Schubert’s very last work, composed when he was dying of syphilis. Editing it was his final task. Cheerful, no, but it did take us into the depths of a certain kind of winter, and in such company! If you’d like to have a taste of just how superb it was, here you are.

The concert was held a venue that to me has always been some quintessence of Amsterdam – the Pianola Museum in the Jordaan. I had known only of the classic “player piano” and thought of it as a somewhat honky-tonk instrument – but in fact they were also used for recording performances, particularly of women performers and composers whose names are generally lost to us now. The Museum is packed with treasures: not only the instruments themselves but also 30,000 long paper rolls of recordings in their cardboard cases. It’s an Amsterdam institution which is kept alive by a tenacious group of obsessed volunteers. Your first stop after the ticket booth is a tiny, dark wood bar, with the elegant performance space beyond. Of course you are welcome to take in your glass of wine or coffee. Your first impression is of a shadowy, rich space with a high red velvet curtain portioning off part of the space and riches all around you in the form of display cases and instruments at different levels. The footprint of the room is probably only about 15 x 35, but it is a full storey and a half high, with the upper reaches accessible by a winding staircase. Up there are the thousands of paper rolls in specially made cabinets. Don’t miss it if you come to Amsterdam!

Anne Frank’s Birthday: Fact and Fiction

Anne Frank 1940 school photo

No one knows exactly when Anne Frank died in 1945, but we do know she was born on June 12, 1929. Every year, I remember how close I felt to her as an eleven-year-old reading The Diary of a Young Girl in a small closet in North Carolina. Anne was an intimate friend at a time when I had very few. Like so many girls, I completely identified with her nascent romantic and sexual longings, her hatred of her mother, her deep humanitarian, and her aspirations as a writer.

Four decades later, I had the joy of living in Amsterdam for six months, and discovered a distressing truth about that tolerant city: 80% of its Jewish people were rounded up and murdered. My child’s view that no one on earth could have suffered more than Anne was so wrong. She was much luckier than most. The Franks’ hiding place was ready in advance, they were all hidden together for 25 months, they had more room and comfort than most people (small as it was), and the quality of support from Miep Gies and others was extraordinary.

In 2002, while staying a few blocks from Anne Frank’s hiding place, I discovered that Jewish people had also been hidden in the attic above our apartment. When I learned that they were last seen fleeing over the rooftops as the Nazis shot at them, I had to learn more about the larger story of which Anne’s was only a part. I began imagining who those people were, and an historical novel began to take shape. For thirteen years, I read histories and memoirs; visited museums, archives, and libraries; listened to people who would talk with me; and wandered the canals looking for unmarked addresses where important events took place. That’s one of many reasons my book is called An Address in Amsterdam.

Resistance Courier at Amsterdam Verzetsmuseum

Resistance Courier at Verzetsmuseum, Amsterdam

As much as I regarded Anne with a child’s adoring eyes, and admired her with an adult’s greater discernment, I also realized that she was confined by her parents’ choices as well as the Nazi Occupation. She was not quite 11 when the Germans invaded the neutral Netherlands. If Anne Frank had been a few years older, it’s hard to imagine that she wouldn’t have found a way to help the resistance.

While I knew that my book would have a young Jewish woman as a heroine, I wanted to write about someone who was old enough to make her own decisions, but young enough that she would have to grow up fast in order to do so. How did an ordinary young woman decide to risk her life as a resister? What would she actually do, and how? As Rachel Klein, my heroine, formed in my imagination, I didn’t see her as an older Anne Frank, but as her own person, with different needs and ambitions than Anne. However, to be sure that I wasn’t unduly influenced, I avoided reading the Diary again until An Address in Amsterdam was done and in press.

As I re-read the Revised Critical Edition which compares all the versions of the Diary, I found my old friend Anne Frank still there – vulnerable, smart, fearful. Perhaps because the times had changed so much, I also heard more clearly than ever the warnings in her work, and her injunction to us now. Today, I’m not so much moved by the girl who wrote “I still believe that people are good at heart,” as the one who speaks to us now: “How wonderful it is that no one need wait a single moment before trying to improve the world.”

The Liberation Route Then & Now

Liberation Route Europe What a joy it was to meet Victoria van Krieken, the vibrant director of the Liberation Route Europe! She’s an enthusiast of the best kind: enterprising, forthright, inventive, dedicated and determined. Over several cups of tea and a delicious salad, we learned about each other’s work. Our meeting was more than timely, since we are only a few days past the date when the Canadians freed the northern Netherlands, and a few days before the anniversary of the Nazi invasion on May 10.

Portrait of Victoria Van Krieken

The daughter of a Dutch/Polish couple, van Krieken listened patiently as I told her how the stories of the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam reached out and grabbed me as I did the research for An Address in Amsterdam. I was fascinated to hear how the Liberation Route became a reality through drawing together people across nations, perspectives and even eras. Far from being a relic to be re-visited only by those who have trodden there before, the Route is created not only for nostalgic visits, but to make an ongoing legacy connect with new generations. So many different elements are linked now across national boundaries – sites, trails, museums and activities. Visitors are engaged in a wide variety of ways, from audio spots where people can listen to stories, to more usual historic places and interactive museums.

The 75^th anniversary of Liberation in 2019-20 is a unique moment. Van Krieken points out that Soldier by bridge too far it is the last time “we will be able to honor the veterans in their presence.” Even if a few live until the 80^th anniversary, there is no guarantee that they will be in a condition to participate. So this is the last opportunity for a certain kind of connection with the past – and to assure the veterans that future generations will continue to walk in their footsteps. Three big projects will support the anniversary effort: a multifaceted commemoration with an emphasis on involving people across countries, occupations and generations; an international awareness campaign; and completion of the Trail itself. How wonderful to imagine what this dynamic woman and her young staff will come up with to bring the past into the future! It is a “modern pilgrimage” as van Krieken puts it. People from every country will be welcome either to participate in person or in electronic ways that we can only begin to conceive of now. In either case, we won’t forget.

Would the Nazis Bomb Amsterdam?

On May 14, 1940, the Germans bombed the historic city of Rotterdam to smithereens, leveling innumerable architectural masterpieces as well as killing more than 800 civilians and depriving more than 80,000 of their homes. Ironically, the Nazis were in the middle of negotiations with the Dutch when the bombers struck. The German General Schmidt himself was horrified to hear the planes overhead, reporting shouting that “This is a catastrophe!” He had let Headquarters know that he was still trying to make a deal with the Dutch, but communications broke down. At least that’s what the Germans later reported.

One of the many controversial questions about that day is whether the Nazis threatened to bomb Amsterdam and other Dutch cities if the Netherlands did not surrender at once. Whether or not that threat was made directly, it’s unimaginable that Amsterdam city officials would not have seen Rotterdam as evidence that the Nazis were completely ruthless and would not spare even the most revered structures. Only four days after the initial invasion, this must have seemed such a blow that there was no difficulty in securing agreement that surrender was the only choice. For more detailed information about all aspects of the Rotterdam bombing, see here.

From the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Eating History at the
Jewish Historical Museum

For a respite from the rigors of wandering around the city, the calm of the Jewish Historical Museum café always repays your effort. You can not only get off your feet, but you can sample to the delights of both standard delicatessen food that you’ll recognize, and some specialties of Jewish Amsterdam which speak of its history.

Jewish Historical Museum Café

My personal favorite is gemberbolus, a sticky bun with lots of ginger syrup (although it does come in other flavors, too). You can find a recipe here as well as the story of how this delicious treat came to be in Amsterdam. It’s traced, thanks to Gaitri Pagrach-Chandra, back to Spain in two possible ways: first, it may have been a snack for the occupying Spanish forces when they invaded the Netherlands during the Eighty Years War (1568-1648). But there seems little question that the bolus came with the Sephardic Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition.

Although the Netherlands was not a paradise for Jewish people — for example, they couldn’t join guilds or become citizens — it offered far more equality and opportunity than any other country at that time. The community prospered and became essential to Amsterdam’s economy as well as its character. By 1675, they had erected the magnificent Portuguese Synagogue. Why, if many were originally Spaniards, did they call it that? Partly because some fled to Portugal first before the Inquisition began there, but also because of the bitter history of the Spanish invasion and not wanting to be associated with Catholic Spain.

Even if you can’t taste all that in the gemberbolus, it’s good to remember how often food brings history alive. Since I was too busy eating my roll to take a picture of it, I’m indebted to the delightful What’s Cooking blog for the delightful photo below:

Thanks to timskitchen.blogspot.com

Another Side of Dam Square

Identified as in public domain: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/536491374335302561/

I’m doing this by eye, but I’m pretty sure that this building is on Dam Square on the Royal Palace side. The SS sign you see was designed to attract Dutch recruits, particularly after the invasion of Russia, when some were motivated by the idea that they could fight the communists. Nazi imagery like this was commonplace in major public places after the invasion in 1940.

Siert Bruins could have been recruited by this office on the Dam. He is a Dutch-born SS volunteer who was accused in 2013 of murdering Aldert Klaas Dijkema, a Dutch resistance fighter, as a reprisal. However, the judge ruled that there was insufficient evidence. Earlier, Bruins was convicted in absentia by a Dutch court for several other murders after the war, but he had already fled to Germany and taken German citizenship. Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal found him living under a false name in a German village, and he was convicted there of two other murders and imprisoned for 5 years.

As I researched my novel, I learned that reprisal killings were all too common. When the Resistance took some strong action, the Nazis often killed someone, or in some cases, a whole group of randomly assorted people. No wonder my heroine is afraid for her life.

Window Cleaning on the Entrepotdok

A cherry picker beside an historic building with a person cleaning windows

Entrepotdok, Amsterdam

No, the person in the cherry picker isn’t fixing something, just cleaning the grime off the windows. Like many other cleaning rituals, this is an obsession in Amsterdam. You can also still occasionally see a fellow with a long ladder balanced on a wagon, but the more modern equipment is commoner now. In addition to the national fetish with sanitation, letting the maximum light in is important more than halfway to the North Pole. This building is part of the Entrepotdok redevelopment which was an early example of the conversion of historically important buildings (in this case a warehouse) into social, i.e. public, housing.

Although I’ve been to Amsterdam’s airport dozens of times, I’ve never failed to see windows being washed, whether outside or inside, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are people who do nothing else. Even the internal windows are gleaming, and the glass you can’t see through reflects as perfectly as any mirror. Although I think of myself as a good housekeeper, the Dutch are so much better. Our apartment rent has nearly always included a weekly or bi-weekly cleaning to be sure standards were kept up.

In my upcoming novel An Address in Amsterdam, cleaning is an important part of everyday life. After the family’s Gentile housekeeper is no longer allowed to work for a Jewish household, my heroine Rachel and her mother do all the work themselves, which was unusual for the middle class at that time.

Daffodils from the Other Flower Market

moment now and then amsterdam These amazing daffodils came from “the other flower market,” held Monday mornings at the open square behind the Amstelkerk. Notice also the carved white marble support for the steps, the gauze curtain that gives a little privacy without preventing people from seeing in, the bicycle parked out front, the houseboat on the other side of the canal, and the big windows in the 17^th century buildings. In the dark northern climate, the latter were essential to provide enough indoor light.

The Nazis Arrive in Amsterdam

moment in amsterdam The German soldiers are rolling into Amsterdam in May 1940. If you look closely, you’ll see at least one person giving them the Nazi salute. The Dutch population was completely shocked by the invasion. They had believed and hoped that they could remain neutral as they had in World War I. Although the initial attack was by air, Rotterdam was the city which suffered most by far. Because of the surrender, Amsterdam was spared bombardment apart from a few accidents.