Amsterdam

-continued-

We arrive with only a small agenda, really. My agenda actually. Alberto is not even sure he's even heard of The Netherlands or Amsterdam. He's just happy to be here. Only the next day, when he sees the souvenir stands with windmills and ceramic Dutch girls in starched white hats and the wooden shoes, do I see the lights of recognition go on. A childhood memory of TV cartoons shows advertising Dutch-style chocolate; the logo had a Dutch girl in wooden shoes in front of a windmill. And some long ago memory of an animated version of Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates.

We didn't come for the food. The Dutch do not have a national menu of frogs legs and snails or marinara and fried calamari. Unless you like raw (sometimes alive) herring dropped down your throat head first, you are really hard-pressed to find an indigenous menu. Instead, the Netherlands has cheerfully appropriated a polyglot of international cuisine with an emphasis on meat and sausage and good beer.

We didn't come for the Cathedrals. The Netherlands is the birth of the Protestant Reformation and many centuries ago, the Catholic Church was first banned then relegated to attic meeting rooms. In fact, the only mention in the guide books of a Catholic Church is one called The Church in the Attic. I am relieved to hear this, as I have had a surfeit of baroque and rococo chapels and chapel paintings of Annunciations, Passions and Resurrections, of transepts, fonts and reliquaries. This town has been swept clean with a plain Dutch Protestant broom.

Yet this is a tolerant country. Ruled by the Green Party for many decades, it is liberal, socialist even, and socially progressive. Prostitution is legal. Gay marriage is legal. Marijuana is legal. They are leaders in renewable energy. They are the masters of reclaiming land from the encroaching sea. Their canals are clean, flushed and replenished with an elaborate system of valves and levees. The city is largely filled with bicyclers and efficient trolleys, very few cars. They have National Health. Their English is so good, so crisp and well-annunciated, I feel embarrassed to have a slight American West Coast accent. And they are very prosperous.

The humanist kindness and compassion of the Dutch is well-known. They took in large numbers of merchant Jews after their expulsion from Spain in the 15th century, an event that lead to Holland's becoming the world leader for many centuries in trade and commerce. They hid and protected Jews during the Nazi Occupation, as well. And while I hope to visit the famous 'coffee houses' of Amsterdam, and to visit the red light district to see the hookers in the windows, we are in fact here because this is the home of Anne Frank.

I have had a lifelong interest in Anne Frank after having read her diary when I was around 10 years old. I had a hatred of all things Fascist, especially the horror of Nazism. As a boy, I was interested in things like this. It felt safe in the expansive freedoms of 1950's America, of Electrolux, Presto-matic, and the Glide-Flo marvels of vacuum cleaners, refrigerators and new convertibles, to sit in my bedroom filled with moon rockets and chemistry sets, and read the books I brought home from the library; books filled with black and white photos of emaciated men lined up against camp fences. I saw pictures of mountains of shoes and discarded clothing, the railroad cars and the sad faces of children made to wear a star of David on their lapels. This event had passed, I knew that. I could cup my hands around it and see that it had a beginning and an end. I felt relieved to know this and safe from it's horror. It was in the past. It was history. But who are the Jews and why did the Nazis hate them?

Prinsengracht Canal, Amsterdam 2006

Amsterdam 2006

-continued-

What could I know about Jews? My suburban neighborhood in Pasadena, Texas was lined with First Baptist Churches and Faith Tabernacles and Church of Christ. The people in our church were pink cheeked, button-nosed, blue-eyed and round faced. My neighborhood was a medieval English village of family names like Thatcher, Gardener, Potter, Weaver, Farmer and Smith. However, I did have some Mexican friends from school. Once when I asked if I could bring home a friend named Reuben to play, my father said no. 'Mexicans are different, they are not like us. And he could come back later and rob us.' I don't think I knew any Jews, but I was given my first harsh lesson in discrimination. Was that what it was like being Jewish?

One day, the librarian suggested I read a book called The Diary of Anne Frank. It was a revelation. I couldn't put this book down. I could easily imagine her life in the hidden rooms, the recordings of her daily events seem so real. I was so sad when I finished the book. Later, I relished the film with Shelley Winters, whose performance as the high maintenance Mrs. Von Pels became the epitomy for me, of a whining, spoiled, uninvited houseguest.

So, we had to visit Anne Frank's House. I had to see it. And, apparently, so did many other people. On our third day in Amsterdam, we waited outside in the cold in a very long line for 2 hours before we could get entrance to this house on the canal at 263 Prinsengracht.

The entire house is sheathed in a protective second layer of structural steel and glass. It sits within like a nested Russian doll. The extra room this structure provided allows passage for visitors, a study center and gift shop and other administrative space. One moves slowly through the structure, first to the wholesale herbs and spices shop that Anne's father ran on the first floor. There is the desk where secretary and family friend Miep sat, not yet aware of how she would come to be for two years, the sole lifeline for a group of people in hiding. Flat panel screens in every room give you the history of how Otto Frank moved his family out of Germany into the relative safety of neutral Holland. There are interviews with Miep, who is also the person who saved Anne's diary after it was overlooked by the Nazi soldiers who came to arrest the Franks. There are interviews with family friends, and excerpts from Anne's diary.

Only until we reached the rear of the second floor landing and we passed through the hidden door behind the bookcase, did I begin to shake a little bit. This really happened.

I was emotionally overcome by this and feel embarrassed by the tears that begin to flow freely. The rooms were bare, by the wishes of Mr. Frank who survived the war. He didn't think it appropriate to have the furniture left intact. But the walls are intact. And these are the floors they walked on, except during the day, when at the stroke of 8 a.m. everyone had to sit still and not move until the shop below closed for the evening. And here is Anne's room and the walls still have the cut out pictures from movie magazines that Anne wrote about in her book, pasted to the walls, now covered by a protective layer of acrylic. We pass from room to room and it's all just as she described. The kitchen area, the steep stairs to the loft where Anne wrote in her diary.

And there are excerpts from her diary. And actual pages from the diary itself. She describes her fear and pain when the family hears on the radio, rumors about the gas ovens and the mass exterminations. She writes to the effect, "I am hopeful that one day all of mankind will put an end to war and find peace. I know it is possible." I am overwhelmed by this faith in the face of such horror. I briefly bury my face in a sob of tears and anguish that this brilliant writer, so young, so full of hope and possibility would have to go through this; that anyone would be caught in a nightmare like this. I can never really know what it was like, and I am relieved by this. I am grateful that she found the wherewithal to write a diary. I am grateful that Miep saved it.

It is still unknown who turned the family in, but one day they were arrested, separated, put on railway cars and taken away. If she knew her father was still alive, she may have had the stamina to endure the concentration camp. All she knew was her sister and mother, and presumably her father, sent to Auschwitz, were dead. Overwhelmed by loneliness, sickness and sadness she died alone at Bergen-Belsen without ever seeing the war come to an end.

I find that I cannot do anything more the rest of the day. We walk along the canals in silence and put our cameras away. We talk a little bit about what we saw. Alberto is very attentive and caring and takes my hand. He is baffled and confused by what he saw, and by the inhumanity and the unspeakable evilness of it all.

We are both very quiet and reflective and have an early supper and go to bed.

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Prinsengracht Amsterdam April 2006

263 Prinsengracht

Anne Frank

The moveable bookcase with the hidden rooms behind

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I had a bit of fun with Alberto right after we arrived in Amsterdam. We finished unpacking and I suggested we grab a cup of coffee. I had noticed a 'coffee shop' next to the hotel as we arrived. As we entered, Alberto noticed right away the group of college men on a sectional sofa passing a bong. Then, as he looked around the coffee shop, he noticed the businessmen in the back on their laptops, the laughing and chatting yuppie couples rolling a joint and the smell of ganja in the air. The well dressed smiling hostess greeted us with the menu du jour. The menu had a list of about 30 current herbs and prices. "What are you looking for? Would you like something visual or physical? How about this, it's fresh and very popular. Not too strong, with a citrusy, sticky green spice flavor." "We'll try that, thanks," we said. We had not smoked pot in a very long time and had heard it was strong in Amsterdam.

We took a table and the hostess brought our selection to the table. "Complimentary rolling papers?" she said, "Or would you prefer a pre-sanitized bong?" "Would you like fresh juice or coffee?" We gave her our order and looked around. This was very different. Middle-aged couples, businessmen and women, a very nicely appointed salon, classical music floated through the room. No skinny white boy Rastafarians, no nose piercings, no tattoos, no scruffy hippies. Everyone seemed to have all their teeth. I wasn't use to this. We lived in Venice Beach for nearly 10 years. Where are the aging Dead Heads, dreadlocks, the drum circles, the bohemians?

It's true. Throughout the city are dozens and dozens of smoking salons called 'coffee shops'. The Netherlands legalized marijuana several years ago. And although one could theoretically fire one up just about anywhere, it is legal to do so, it is not common to see it on the average street corner, anymore than you would see someone drinking a cocktail at a bus stop. We left the coffee shop after about an hour, and wandered out into the setting sun.

"I'm hungry," we both said simultaneously and we found a great little vegetarian shop called Maoz, with a salad bar that served pita-style sandwiches and fresh Belgian-style fries.

"Can we move here?" said Alberto.

Alberto at the Amnesia Coffee Shop , Amsterdam 2006

Craig , Amsterdam 2006

A M S T E R D A M C O N T I N U E D

On our second day, we visited the huge flower market and admired all the tulips. We grabbed trolleys and canvassed the city. In the afternoon, we visited the Red Light District.

We don't have much to say about the Red Light District. This is an area largely devoted to female prostitutes. No male hookers. It was a clean and attractive section of the city with beautiful canals and shops. The only difference was that in the windows, in the passages between buildings and all along the first street level, were women in various costumes and attractive lingerie. Some were very(!) old, I guess for those that always had it in for grandma, but most were in their late twenties or early thirties. All were very pleasant and gracious and quite beautiful, in a fresh hometown girl sort of way. They sat on chairs or sofas usually with a velvet curtain behind them. Everywhere we looked, there were beautiful women tapping on the glass to get your attention.

It is very impolite to take pictures, presumably to show the guys around the office cooler back home, and they will get quite angry with you if you try it. Later, in Pompeii, we would see brothels called Lupenare. Lupena meaning she-wolf, which is what prostitutes were called then. Perhaps if you tried to take their pictures you would quickly find out why...

The government simply felt it was better to get the girls off the streets, offer police protection, a pension fund and other free public health services I suppose it's better this way. I don't have an answer here. I won't pass judgment. It is the world's oldest profession.

It's just that we couldn't stop thinking about our own nieces and family daughters, granddaughters, aunties and even grandmas. This is not a good life for women. You cannot convince me that these women were not somehow sexually abused at some point in their childhood. And, the idea of turning all the money over to a man (pimp) to manage it for you, and letting him take a large portion of it, is disturbing and seems pathological. Finally, from a large menu of career options, one does not choose to be a whore.

We left for a trolley ride across town to a famous 'coffee bar' called Amnesia. Then for a light dinner on the Rembrandtplein.

Amsterdam 2006

Vieew of Rembrandt Plein from our hotel, Amsterdam 2006

Red-Light District, Amsterdam 2006

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The next day we stayed clear of the 'coffee shops' and instead visited the Anne Frank House. The few days after that, we spent at the fantastic Van Gogh Museum, where we saw more of this man's life work than I ever hoped for. It was thrilling for me to see so much of this man's paintings and there are many other famous artists represented from the same time period to give the whole era a context. I think the curatorship of this museum is one of the best I have ever seen in the world. There are so many pieces to see that curatorial direction allows you see how Vincent imitated and played with various styles of the time that he learned from his friends and drinking buddies, the pointillism of Seurat, the soft brush of Manet, the spotlighted nightclub life of Toulouse-Lautrec, his flirtation with Japanese art all of which eventually lead to his own famous and determined style. All from a man who didn't decide to become a painter until his mid-thirties, a man who never went to art school, a man so haunted with personal demons that it finally drove him to take his own life.

We also visited the Rijksmuseum. (But first, a quick stop at the 'Sensi' Museum Coffee Shop). Many of Rembrandt van Rijn's painting were out in a marvelous traveling show on world tour, and the museum is currently undergoing renovation, but many of his most famous pieces were still there, The Nightwatch, the self-portrait and many commissioned portraits of rich and powerful local citizens. There was also a terrific collection of Vermeer's best and others of the Dutch masters. One of the fun parts of the museum is watching through it's art, the development of the seaports and cities after tossing out the Spanish occupiers, the absorption of the Spanish Jews and the rise of the Dutch to a powerful world power. You are reminded of the lasting influence - Canada, South Africa, Manhattan Island, Indonesia, to name a few places.

We enjoyed our time in Amsterdam. We left by train (but first, a quick stop at the Train Station 'Coffee Shop') to return to Paris for a few days, then headed home to Barcelona.

Wheatfield with Crows

Self-Portrait with Straw Hat

Sel-Portrait

Rembrandt Van Rijn's The Nightwatch

Sight-Seeing Amsterdam