WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7
Having so enjoyed our free tour in Brussels, we signed up for another one in Amsterdam, this time with Sandman tours. The meeting place was the National Monument or Dane Square, in the center of Oldtown. Our guide, Berber, was born in Amsterdam and had an interesting story. She studied and practice law, then decided she wanted more freedom and sailed in the small boat with one other person across the Atlantic. After that she studied history and became a guide. 100% Dutch, she had soft blonde hair and bright blue eyes. At 26 years old, she was articulate, knowledgeable and more than happy to talk at length about all subjects, including architecture, culture, history and the Holocaust. We lucked out.
THE TOUR BEGINS: WILEY AND OPEN
Facing the Royal Palace, Berber explained Amsterdam’s importance as a trade center in early European history. It became so powerful that eventually the French, who didn’t want to compete for power, invaded. The French didn’t like the Dutch ”free-spiritedness.” Holland was the first country to be ruled not by a king ,but by the people. Amsterdam, explained Berber, has continuously been a tolerant place. When the Dutch rebelled against the occupying Catholics and declared Protestantism the national religion, they still tolerated a Catholic presence. Why? Not from kindheartedness, but for trade purposes. They didn’t want to lose Catholic countries as trading partners.
When pogroms spread through Eastern Europe and Russia, Jews, having heard of Amsterdam’s tolerance, fled to the city where they comfortably coexisted with the Dutch until World War II when they accounted for ten percent of the city’s population.
THE RED LIGHT DISTRICT AND CHINATOWN
We passed quickly through the red-light district, which both Chloe and I found disturbing. The women displaying themselves in the narrow, ground floor windows were mostly women of color. When the blinds are drawn, women are with their clients.
How often I have heard the argument supporting legalized prostitution, of which Amsterdam has a long history. Supposedly legalization keeps women safe, but somehow I see it taking advantage of the least fortunate to fulfil a role. Usually women who can’t find work or are not trained become prostitutes. Also painful is the understanding that when people see women of color as “legitimate” prostitutes it solidifies absurd stereotypes.
Chinatown was next on the tour. It’s really just a Chinatown in name. There are only a few Chinese restaurants, and a few people of Chinese descent. It felt a bit like the African neighborhood in Brussels.
THE JEWISH QUARTER
The Jewish quarter, not to be confused with a Jewish ghetto or a neighborhood within a city where Jews were forced to live, was instead formed during WWII when the Nazis relocated Amsterdam’s Jews. The people of Amsterdam are particularly ashamed of their treatment of Jews during World War II, and are forthright about teh shame. Less than 1% the of Amsterdam’s large Jewish population survived partially because the city kept accurate records of who lived where throughout Amsterdam, and that the Jews. When the German invaded, they took the population records and were able to easily find and move all the Jews. During the war, most of Amsterdam’s Jews were sent to concentration camps and murdered. Amsterdam has a Holocaust Museum and a Resistance Museum. Anne Frank’s home is also in Amsterdam, and can be visited.
WE ARE A PRACTICAL PEOPLE…
“We are practical people” said Berber and then showed just how practical they are. The oldest church in Amsterdam is called, the Old Church, the church built after the old church is called the New Church.
The New Church, built in the 1600s, is situated next to another large building, the science building where cadavers were dissected during the Renaissance. As a tolerant, and experimental city, the pursuit of arts and science attracted many artists from around Europe, including Rembrandt who studied the human body in this very building.
CLEVER AND DRIVEN BY PROFIT
As we stood in a quiet, University courtyard, Berber explained that the houses in Amsterdam lean because, like in Venice, they are built on wooden pillars, not in the sea like Venice, but in a swamp.
The buildings surrounding the courtyard were once the headquarters of the East India Company, the first conglomerate, capitalist business in history. The Company pooled money from different sources to reduce risk and increase the opportunity for profit. As colonialists, they pilfered and murdered for spices, tea and other goods.
It was also in this courtyard through which Berber walked while studying law.
Berber’s friend owns a cheese store and we were all given tastes of delicious strong cheeses. The tour ended with the Anne Frank story, but also a reminder of Amsterdam’s longstanding reputation as a place of love and peace, the last wave maintained by baby boomers.
It was a brilliant and in-depth, two and a half hour tour. Two in our group ducked out without paying, a couple from Australia and a woman from New Zealand each paid only five euros. In the end, we realized Berber earned a mere 50 euros. Cause to think about money…I think.
REMBRANDT IN THE RIJKSMUSEUM
After lunch, we walked to the RijksMuseum and made a beeline to the Rembrandt paintings, or so we thought. A gorgeous, grand museum, with wide open stairways, ceiling paintings, vaulted rooms and open areas with stained glass, we passed through grand open corridors of art, furniture from the 1500s, statues and paintings, and ended up in a library with ornate walls and ceilings, and a winding, iron staircase that connected the levels of books.
Finally, and with a little help from a guard, we located the Rembrandt paintings – of particular note, “The Night Watch,” which was surrounded by tourists and a group of young people with their teacher. Throughout the museum, tour guides showed youth groups– probably from local high schools–around and described the work.
Chloe said sarcastically, “Yeah, that’s exactly like what we did when I was in high school.”
We were the last to leave the museum, enchanted and fulfilled from the day. Dinner in the city then train to the hostel.
