My mother thinks
I forgot how to take pictures while in Amsterdam, hence why I haven’t added any
more to my Facebook account, but I told her: I won’t let myself upload them
until I’ve blogged about them. So, here goes…
I woke up
super-early on Monday, 14 May, knowing that there was a lot I wanted to see and
not a lot of time to do it. But first, I needed coffee! Unfortunately, I was up
early enough that there was nary a true coffee shop open. It took almost an hour
before I was eventually able to grab a seat at Broodje Mokum and enjoy a cuppa, so while waiting for that lovely little café to open, I
headed over to the first touristy the thing on my list:
The Homomonument is a large (albeit easy to overlook) memorial dedicated to all gay and lesbian
persons who have faced persecution. It opened in 1987—the city had just
celebrated the 25th Anniversary of the monument earlier in May, hence the flowers you'll see below—and was the
first of its kind in the world.
Resting on the bank of the Keizersgracht canal,
in the shadow of Westerkerk Church (where Rembrandt is buried),
the Homomonument consists of three large, pink granite triangles set into the
ground. Together, the three small triangles form a much larger triangle.
The
positioning of the the monument's points are intentional: one points toward the
National War Memorial; another toward the Anne Frank House, which I will
discuss further below; and the third toward the headquarters of COC Nederland,
the oldest continuously operating gay and lesbian organization in the world
(founded in 1946).
I spent a good bit of time at the Homomonument, reflecting
on its significance and appreciating its very existence.
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| Westerkerk Church. The area with the flowers is one of the points of the triangle. |
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| Coffee at Brodje Mokum. I can't read (or speak) Dutch, but I sure pretended like I could... |
From the Homomonument and Broodje Mokum, I eventually made
my way over to the second item on
my list: the Anne Frank House and Museum, which is a museum built around the actual house where the Frank family hid from
the Nazis for just over two years. Given the nature of what I was seeing, this
is one area where I respected the request not to take photos or videos. You’ll
just have to take my word for it that it is incredibly moving!
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| The Anne Frank House (left) and Museum (right) |
As part of the
self-guided tour, visitors are led through the ‘public’ side of the building,
from which Otto Frank (Anne’s father) and his colleagues ran their business.
Eventually, guests make their way through a small hole in a back closet—itself
hidden by a large bookcase—and into the small Achterhuis (Dutch for ‘back house,’ and referred to by Frank as the
‘Secret Annex’), where Anne hid away with her parents, sister, and four others
until they were betrayed.
After moving through these small living
quarters—which all together was only about the size of mine and Nic’s former
apartment in the South Loop of Chicago but distributed over two floors, and still had magazine clippings Anne
had glued to the wall to brighten up her own living area—guests make their way
into the two-part museum.
The first part deals with the Frank family’s
imprisonment in the concentration camps (only Otto survived), and the second
part deals with discriminatory acts in a broader context. Throughout the
section devoted to the Frank family, guests are able to view recorded
interviews conducted with Otto and others who knew them. Perhaps the most
poignant moment for me came as I was watching the very last video, which
featured Anne’s father.
It concludes with him talking about how Anne always
kept-up a relatively cheerful façade while they were in hiding, and that he never had even
the slightest inkling that half the thoughts she recorded in her diary were
going through her mind. He finishes by saying in a melancholic tone that he
never really knew his daughter, which just goes to show that a parent never
really knows their child. How sad is that? As if what Otto Frank went through
wasn’t horrific enough, he then had to go to his grave years later thinking
that he didn’t even know his own daughter?
After an emotionally heavy morning, I decided it was time for a change of pace.
I headed over to Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, which is a national museum devoted to Dutch
arts, craft, and history. There are many famous works here—especially from the
painters Rembrandt and Vermeer (though, sadly, Girl with a Pearl Earring was not on display!)—but the main reason I wanted to go here was because of an
experience Nic had when in Amsterdam.
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| Museumplein, with the Rijksmuseum behind me. |
You see,
according to Nic, when he visited the Rijksmuseum during his study abroad
experience, he was shocked to find figures in the paintings that closely
resembled himself. As he puts it (more or less), he was hit over the head by
his Dutch roots in that moment. Having heard this story on more than one
occasion, I wanted to check out the situation for myself.
My goodness: he
was not kidding, as evidenced by the
photos I snapped below. The
bone-structure, the nose—it’s like looking at various paintings of Nic dressed
in period costumes! It was quite funny, to me, to learn that this was one of
those rare instances where my beloved did not overly exaggerate.
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Upon leaving, I
headed around back to one of two large ‘I amsterdam’ sculptures (I saw the
second one later in the day near the new Filmmuseum), which were originally designed to promote
business interests within the city, but quickly became a tourist attraction.
I had
actually never heard of it before, but locals kept suggesting I go there, so I
did. It was...cute, but I really don’t understand why it was being promoted so
heavily by those who live in Amsterdam full-time when there are much more
interesting sights that visitors should be directed toward. Oh well, it’s not
my city so I can’t judge I guess…
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| Apparently, I am Amsterdam... |
The remainder of
my day was spent in the northeastern part of the city, so this seems like a
good place to take a break.
Until next time…
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