Lesson Learned and a Sad Revelation

(11/1/22 - 11/3/22) The world has been transformed in many ways since the advent of COVID-19; one of those is the way in which museums regulate the flow of visitors through their doors. This is certainly true in Paris. Since June 2021, when France opened its borders to tourists once again, museum visitors have been admitted on a timed entry system, which involves choosing, and sticking with, a specific entry time and paying for tickets online.

While at first this process may have seemed inconvenient and awkward, as frequent museum goers, we quickly adapted. That is why I now am particularly frustrated with myself. Here we are in Amsterdam, home of an amazing museum devoted to painter Vincent Van Gogh, one of my absolute favorites, and I have failed to reserve tickets in advance. To make matters worse, the situation at another museum I had had my heart set on, the Anne Frank House, is no different -- tickets there are completely sold out for our entire stay in Amsterdam. What a rookie mistake! I clearly had underestimated the popularity of these venues.

Nevertheless, we rebound by choosing another bucket list venue, the Rijksmuseum, the Netherlands’ national museum of art and history. This enormous 19th-century building houses a large collection of Rembrandts, Vermeers and even a few Van Goghs. In addition, I’m delighted to discover large displays of decorative arts, including furniture, glassware, jewelry and some gorgeous Delftware, the highly valued 16th and 17th-century ceramics produced in the Dutch city of Delft.

After our visit, we are lured farther and farther into the neighborhoods surrounding the museum, taking in the details of the beautiful old buildings, all so individualized in their design and oddly interspersed with so much water. While I had known that Amsterdam was famous for its canals, I had had no idea what that meant. It’s not an exaggeration to say that nearly every block in the city is lined by water.

It’s remarkable to observe how the people have adapted to their geographic challenges, specifically a city built at or below sea level, by creating countless dikes to keep the water at bay, so to speak. Despite their constant, centuries-long struggle to hold the water back, a surprising number of the older houses we see are quite tipsy, leaning startlingly to one side. At first glance, the eye tries to correct this lopsided appearance, but it’s evident that these old buildings are sinking into the ground. Despite this, they all appear to be occupied and, otherwise well maintained.

Eventually, we reward ourselves with a frothy beer at a very old bar called Hoppe. There are countless such old places in town. The ambiance is warm and friendly and we relax and slowly sip our beers while we contemplate dinner later in the evening.

As always while traveling in Europe, we are presented with the extreme contrast between the very old and the very modern. As an American, it’s challenging to reconcile these differences, as we don’t often experience them at home. Here, though, we are surrounded by people going about their day, cell phones in hand, living in a high-tech world while seemingly unfazed by the vestiges of the antiquated world they still live in – with centuries of business conducted on these streets, generations of lives lived, one seamlessly unconsciously blending into the next.

At one point in our wanderings, we approach a plaque titled De Schaduwkade (Shadow Wall). It describes how during the Second World War, more than 200 people living along that canal were murdered for being Jewish. A closer look reveals several brass plaques embedded in the walls lining the canal. Each plaque lists the names of the prisoners, their age at the time of capture, the date of their capture and the location of their imprisonment by the Nazis.

We continue farther on in the neighborhood and spot what appears to be a long, narrow block comprising a series of brick walls positioned at different angles. We quickly realize this is another Holocaust Memorial, but this one commemorates an astounding, seemingly countless number of people. Each brick contains the names in alphabetical order, with the birthdate and the age at time of capture for each Dutch victim of the Holocaust.

The walls are positioned in such a way that the viewer is compelled to move from one to the next. We look for and quickly find several Lessers, Bob’s father’s family name. Although, to Bob’s knowledge, he had only had Germans on his paternal ancestors’ side of the family, we can’t help but wonder if there could be more to the story.

Around the corner on another wall, a very famous name suddenly appears: Anna Frank, 10.1.1929 – 14 jaar. It’s her! What a sobering punch to the gut it is to see her name there, to know she was only 14 years old when they took her -- a lovely, vivacious child.

The National Holocaust Names Memorial commemorates every Dutch Holocaust victim, more than 102,000 people. I am so grateful to have witnessed this beautiful and moving tribute, giving us the opportunity that we had missed to connect with Anne Frank for a moment, and to contemplate the profoundly sad and meaningless loss of so many innocent lives.