Sunday 14 - Thursday 18 of May, 2006

Exploring Amsterdam

Anne Frank

It's hard to be in Amsterdam and not be aware of Anne Frank.

We had been to the Anne Frank House on our way to Israel on our honeymoon for the first year of rabbinic school in Jerusalem. We managed to visit the Amsterdam Historical Museum for the exhibit of Anne Frank letters shortly before closing time. We learned a good deal of the context of her life in Holland, read testimonials by some of her friends, and saw texts of actual letters to and from Anne. It is incredibly sad to be reminded that she died not long before the end of the war, and moreover, that she had family in Switzerland; too bad the Franks did not escape there.

We knew that we were close to the Museum of the Dutch Resistance to the Nazis and a memorial at the deportation site of Amsterdam Jewry so we checked them out only to learn that they had closed for the day.
Another memorial nearby, though, was a monument to the Jewish resistance.

Along the two sides are inscriptions with the text of Jeremiah 8:23 (in Hebrew and in Dutch):

Oh, that my head were water,
My eyes a fount of tears!
Then would I weep day and night
For the slain of my people.

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