Day 4: Dutch Resistance

Today was a focus on some of the more somber aspects of Dutch history. It was also very dense information-wise, so I think I'll just be saying some very general stuff about each thing. Honestly? I probably should be doing that in the first place, but I guess my blogging style is to write down everything.

Professor David Barnouw, author of The Diary of Anne Frank - The Critical Edition gave a lecture on the Netherlands' history during World War II. Basically, the Netherlands wanted to remain neutral, but the Germans originally had hope that the Netherlands would join the Nazi movement when they invaded--an invasion that took about five days. There was a strike where Jewish and non-Jewish workers alike banded together against the German occupation. Not only did this end violently, but the German attitude toward the Dutch became much more agressive. Many restrictions were placed on the Jewish population of the Netherlands, and hunting of the Jews became the main job of the invaders. The non-Jewish population was given the chance to join the Germans if they wanted to, but this proved to be a lot more difficult than it initially sounded. By the end of the war, over 100000 people were in jail or in a camp due to suspicion of working with the enemy.

We then watched the film Black Book, a film about the German occupation in the Netherlands. From this movie, I learned a couple of things:

1. You can never trust anyone. Ever. Seriously.
2. It's been a really long time since I last saw a European film. Even with the professor's warning, I wasn't entirely prepared for that.
3. I still really hate needles. On the plus side, I now have an excuse to carry chocolate with me at all times, because what if someone tries to kill me by stabbing me with an insulin needle? That chocolate could save my life!

Anyway, we then got to look around the Dutch Resistance museum. Maybe the fact that most oppressors tend to cover up resistance material contributed to my assumption that the museum would be small, but I was very wrong. The museum was huge! There was an entire room solely dedicated to the embroidery of women prisoners during the war, and I even completely missed an exhibit on the involvement in the East Indies colonies. Oops.

A lot of us know Anne Frank's history from middle or elementary school (as it was apparently in my case? I think that's when I read it). The Frank family hid in the Secret Annex in July 6, 1942 when Anne's older sister received a letter summoning her to a concentration camp. The Secret Annex held eight people: the Frank family (4), the van Pels family (3), and the infamous dentist. Someone revealed their hiding spot, and they were discovered on August 4, 1944. They had been in hiding for almost 25 months. As I learned today, Anne Frank actually wrote a second version of her diary when her family heard on the radio that wartime diaries were wanted for an institute that would be prepared by the Minister of Education. When her father received the diary, he decided to combine the second diary with parts of the first and publish it to fulfill his daughter's dream of being a writer. It had marginal success in the Netherlands, but it became a major success when the English translation was released.

The Anne Frank house has since been changed into a museum, but it was requested that the Secret Annex remain unfurnished. It really does add to the effect that the whole place has. On a less serious note, I hit my head pretty hard when I stepped up the hidden bookshelf step to go up the secret stairs. While my friends and I got a good laugh out of it, it did give me an idea of just how claustrophobic and overall scary this whole setting must have been. I mean, I hit my head! And I'm really short!

We visited a few other places today, which I'm just going to explain with pictures.

One of the most famous monuments dedicated to the Auschwitz victims. The glass reflects a broken sky, showing the pain that cannot be healed caused by the cruelty of humanity. 

A monument dedicated to the Dutch victims of the Holocaust.

The monument dedicated to the Dutch workers on strike against German occupation.

The "Homo Monument", dedicated to the suffering of the LGBT community in the Netherlands. Flowers are often placed for those who have died from AIDS.

A Jewish synagogue that was converted into a museum.

They also had a lot of very impressive surrealist paintings.

Interestingly enough, I think the thing that fascinated me the most was the museum setups I've been starting to notice in Amsterdam compared to the United States. I recently took an introduction class on archaeology, and they focused a lot on methods of public outreach. This included museums and how important they were in informing the public about certain aspects of our history. I really feel like the museums of Amsterdam have this down better than any museum I've seen in the United States. It's not only in the obvious sense, such as the use of some of the newer technologies to showcase the items and have descriptions all in one place, either. A lot of what I'm impressed with is the finer details, from using the blank white walls as giant projector screens to printing the information on the embroidery of women prisoners on cross-stitch pattern fabric. It kind of makes me wish that the museums in the States had this much creativity.

I think that's all I have to say for now.