We, for the first time today, got to sleep in! Which made today a little bit more special. ;) We hopped on the tube and headed out to Tower station, where we could go see the London Tower and London Bridge. At the London Tower, we started by going to get into the LONG line to see the Crown Jewels. As we were waiting, the dark storm clouds moved in and began to rain - somewhat fitting of a place with a torture chamber and known murdering place of children... I was shocked that the line moved so quickly, and soon we were seeking refuge from the rain and seeking many beautiful, extremely ornate Royal artifacts. Much of the inside reminded me of a combination of cool interactive museum and Disney Land. The people who created this long journey into see the Crown Jewels had the brilliant idea of putting in a slow moving sidewalk inside so you can see the Crown Jewels up close, but no one is crowding around and stalling in front of them for days. We got to go on it twice in a row to see both sides of the cases :) Afterwards, we went to see the Bloody Tower, where there was the story of the two princes. King Edward IV had two sons, Edward (12) and Richard (9). In 1483, after the death of King Edward IV, his brother Richard brought his two sons to the Tower of London. Richard declared both boys to be illegitimate and were kept at the tower, never to be seen again, and Richard became King Richard III. Two centuries later, in 1674, workmen who were removing an old staircase found an old wooden chest hidden beneath it. When they opened it, they found the broken bones of two children inside it. Our last stop at the London Tower was to see the torture room. The informational plaques explained that torture was quite rare in England, which really surprised me. The torturing devices to see were the Scavenger's Daughter (where a person's body is folded into thirds in between two metal bows and slowly crushed to death), the rack (where a person's body was stretched until it pulled apart all of the joints of the body), and manacles (where a person's body was hung by his hands and left for hours). All in all, very disturbing. From there, we re-entered the tube to go find Globe Theatre. In case you're thinking, "Oh, that's cool, I bet it was easy to find since so many people want to visit it!", you'd be incorrect just like I was. It took us following a local couple there to be able to find it - no signs!! Unfortunately, they were doing back to back shows today so we could not even go inside. :( To stave off our sadness, we went to an American-inspired British BBQ restaurant. It was crazy to eat things like pulled pork with Sopmop sauce (vinegar and chilies) and to eat purple pickles, but it was fun. Our last stop of the day was at Trafalgar Square. It was a beautiful square with a large fountain, many statues, and lots of local musicians. As we were walking around we saw a sign that said, "Afternoon Tea in the Crypt!" Which of COURSE intrigued us greatly. So that's what we did! We had a high afternoon tea with amazing tiny sandwiches, cakes, and scones with jam and clotted cream with our little pots of tea. It was a beautiful little treasure to brighten our day ; and only a little bit creepy. :) By this time it was late afternoon so we took the tube back to clean up before dinner and a meeting and an early bedtime!! We are having to try and repack so we can bring home all our goodies for friends and family and it's only a little bit of a challenge... ;) Can't believe tomorrow we will be boarding a plane back to the US! Thanks for reading about our time and I can't wait to see you all soon. xox
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Good afternoon from the good evening of London! Today we went to Imperial Museum to view their Holocaust floor. To get a good understanding of why the Holocaust happened, it is important to know some very key details about WWII. Germany lost WWI, which was a devastating shock, and the war ended in a revolution as the Kaiser (emperor) fled leading Germany to become a democracy much to many people's discontent. Communists played a role in the revolution, and one of their leaders was a Jew, so many people blamed the communists and Jews for the conditions after the war. between 1919 - 1930, Germany had 21 governments, hyper-inflation, and world-wide economic depression causing mass unemployment. So when the Nazi party promised to change that, they were understandably appealing to most people. The Nazi party started in 1920, Adolf Hitler became its leader in 1921, and by September of 1930 Nazis were the second largest party in Reichstage (German parliament). In 1933, Hitler took power and the following events unfolded:
So as you can see by just that small snapshot, a lot of factors played into how Hitler rose to power - and then with his power began conquering Europe and "cleansing" the race as he outlined in his book Mein Kampf. The three items out of all of the thousands of photos, film, stories, and testimonies we saw and heard that really stuck out to me were the following: 1) The pile of shoes from the people murdered in the gas chambers. Washington DC's holocaust museum also has a similar exhibit, but what really got to me was one single pair of shoes in the massive piles. They were chunky-healed leather shoes, with thick gold straps. And in that moment I saw them my stomach churned because I could visualize the type of woman who might have been wearing those particular pair of shoes, and know her fate that she could not have possibly imagined. 2) The photographs of Jewish women in the streets right after they had been beaten, tortured, and raped - their mouths open screaming, their eyes wild - almost feral - with agony. I am not exaggerating that I have that woman's face burned in my memory. 3) A quote by Edmund Burke "For evil to triumph, it is only necessary for good meant to do nothing." It was physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausting to go through the museum and having spent several hours trying to digest the photos, films, and testimonies of survivors horror I was spent. I was happy for a little break by walking and taking the tube out to a pub to grab some great food (Fish and Chips anyone?!). After lunch, we walked the couple hundred feet to the Jewish Museum where we were to meet Barbara Winton. The story I'd like to focus on for today is the story of her father, Nicholas Winton. Nicholas Winton was born in 1909 and lived to the age of 106. When he was 29, he was scheduled to go on a winter holiday ski trip with his friend but about a week before the trip, his friend cancelled the trip and said that needed to go to Prague. When they arrived, they spent several days assessing the dismal situation of the thousands of refugees in need. Nicholas saw there was a gap for a need to help the children, and soon began taking lists of names of children whose family would be willing to send them to Britain for safety. He soon realized that there were five distinct groups within the refugee camps who all wanted him to use THEIR list of children as the names to help. Using his keen intellect, Nicholas went around to each of the different groups and told each, "I'm going to use the other group's list unless I get yours in full by tomorrow". This forced each group to create a list and Nicholas combined all the lists into one. Now Nicholas needed support to back him, so he went to request support from Britain to move these children but was denied. Yet again he used his stubborn willpower mixed with intelligence to get a paper from the British Committee, get a stamp made and added the line "Children's Section", typed up new request and it was accepted on two conditions: 1) He had to find foster families for each of the children coming over and 2) Foster families needed a 50 pound guarantee (~$3,000-$4,000) to support them. Nicholas spent a few months writing letter to organizations and to the newspapers to try and get everything prepared. Letter correspondence took a long time so to speed up the process he got photos of the children and on the back it was listed their number, name, birthday, and religious affiliation and foster families could select a specific child. Through hardworking and determination, Nicholas was able to save 669 children from Prague before the war officially began in September. When asked why he did it, Nicholas would say that anyone would it it because it was the right human thing to do; he never saw it as an act of heroism. Barbara noted there were really 4 reasons why he was successful at this:
Out of many speakers I have heard, I have to saw that Barbara was one of my favorite. She was collected, eloquent, well-educated, and embodied many important points of an important story in history. I admired that she spoke about how difficult it is to study history because it is so arbitrary, something she witnessed firsthand as her father was giving interviews in his much later years. It was truly a beautiful story that has MUCH MUCH MUCH more detail, but she wrote about it in her biography on his "If It's Not Impossible...". For the book she used a great deal of care to use the primary documents that he had kept to get as much factual as possible, and was able to present the published book to him for his 105th birthday! We had time to process everything and get cleaned up before going to dinner with Barbara. It was exciting to be able to have a discussion with her about world politics with her unique background. Now it is nearly time for bed, and I'm going to tuck into some covers and try to read a bit more of Anne Frank's Diary - I'm not entirely sure I've read it before, but I'm at pg. 182 out of 336 now since this trip and I hope to finish it soon! Tomorrow is our only free day this trip - and it'll be sure to shock and delight. Stay tuned! Greetings from London, day 2! Today we grabbed a quick bite to eat before walking to meet our tour guide "R". We started at the Kindertransport Memorial, which was beautifully crafted. It was interesting b cease it depicted the children who were sent that were from more of the middle class - well fed, well education, which was reflected in the statue itself. The artist himself was sent to Daizig as a child so it was fitting that he created the memorial reflecting his own experiences. Downstairs in the same train station, there was another Kindertransport memorial that depicted two children, both morbidly sad and in modern clothing, which was an interesting artist choice. "R" mentioned that it was interesting that the statue memorials are just as unassuming as those who quietly and efficiently assisted the children during the war. After looking at the memorials, "R" led us all around the East Jewish Quarter of London and their harrowing tales. We were able to see where some children were sent, where religious buildings once were or are now today. The most interesting building for me was one building we saw on Bricklane that was originally a French Protestant Church, then it was converted into a synagogue, and today is an active mosque. What a neat building where people of all different faiths through the journey of time have made to worship. Our tour took longer than expected, and the bus ride was longer than people realized to our next location, that we had under 15 minutes to grab some food and get to the bus. My mom and I literally sprinted through the closest market we had been in to see a local artist we had passed by earlier. She does amazing adorable animals and people drawings that all use isosceles triangles (hard to explain) and sells them herself there. Since she was not going to be there on our free day, we got our artwork, sprinted again to some food, then got to the bus. "R" talked our way through the winding, thin streets of London to our next destination, which was Swiss Cottage. There we saw where the more affluent Jews moved when they relocated from the East Side. Our next stop was the Weiner Museum. Alfred Weiner was a fascinating man who started to collect evidence and artifacts on anti-semitism IN THE 1920's!!! Today his collection is tens of thousands of books, documents, pamphlets, photographs, and memoirs from the 1920's to today. The craziest thing we saw today was a magazine that looked like it was from the WWII propaganda days of the 1930s/1940s but was actually published up through 2014!!!! They marketed themselves as a contemporary view on history but had extremely concerning articles regarding modern anti-semitism (very clearly in FAVOR for it). That - along with the current events occurring in the USA right now - make me nauseous and have heart-felt intense sorrow. As I work to study and uphold human rights, I continue to fail to understand blind hatred, whether that is of a person's language, culture, religious, sex, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, etc. It appalls, horrifies, and disgusts me to my very core. I was extremely excited, in a morbid way?, to be able to see and touch an original of the story "The Poisonous Mushroom" that I had learned about during my time in the Human Rights Museum in Canada. It is a piece of propaganda that was taught to young children, and was used in our class to understand how ideas were slowly spread. If you're interested - it's a fascinating read - you can find it at this following URL: (just read page 2) Then we stopped at the British Museum, which was nearly next door, to admire their vast collection. It was also a chance for us to see the actual Rosetta Stone!! Another person on our trip - "I" - wanted to go this evening on the London Eye, so she went with my mom and I. She was even more scared by the whole experience then I was so it was good to have someone to commiserate with ;) Actually, to be honest for how high up it went it was not as scary as I thought! The terrifying part was when we had to stop and the cart we were in swayed a little bit! We got some gorgeous views of the entire London skyline, which is such a unique opportunity. After going on the London Eye, we picked up some postcards and had some delicious, authentic Indian cuisine! Then we braved the tube and made it successfully back to the hotel for showers and bed (and blogging for one of us...). Tomorrow we will be meeting another amazing person - who I'll keep as a surprise for now! - so stay tuned! Greetings from London! It's been a long, long day so I hope that this post will be shorter than usual (sorry for the length; there are just so many great stories and tales I want to share!). This morning was a complete kerfuffle - one after another after another of issues. Vans to airport were late to begin with; we had to wait 25 minutes for another person to get on our van who never showed up; van driver broke at least a dozen traffic laws to unsafely get us to the airport; our flight was posted as being 30 minutes delayed when it wasn't so people had to literally RUN through the entire airport to get to the last gate on the far side which was for our flight; van picking us up from London didn't show up then wasn't approved; we were given the wrong kind of "Tube" passes; we were so late getting in that we missed our only opportunity to have a guided tour of the Jewish Museum here; etc etc etc etc etc etc all day long. Whe we finally arrived at the Jewish Museum, we had a short amount of time to just look through it. There were exhibits on two floors to look through. The first floor was on Jewish Heritage. It explained many of the ideologies, important holidays, and artifacts/objects that are used by Jewish people today. It had many video screens playing with Jewish families today that explained different things. The second floor was the entire history of the Jewish people and the Jewish faith. Due to both of their complexities, I will not attempt to retell either in depth, other than to note that the Jews were persecuted many times since the beginning of their historical story. The story I want to tell today is that of a man named Leon Greenman, a Jewish British citizen who was imprisoned - AND SURVIVED - five different concentration camps. His haunting story touched me. He was born in the East End of London in 1910 and despite his rough childhood he eventually worked as a barber and later a trader of antique books. He spent a good amount of time boxing, but his true passion was singing. During one performance of his, a young woman named Else Van Dam was in the audience. She once said to him, "When I heard you I knew you were going to be my husband." They got married in 1935, settling in Rotterdam to look after her grandmother, and by 1940 they had a baby boy named Barney. When Barney was just 2 months old, Nazis invaded the Netherlands. Leon gave his British passports to friends to save them so he could use them to prove his citizenship but they were destroyed. On October 8, 1942, Nazis took their whole family away, and soon they were sent to Kamp Westerbork. On January 1, 1943, Leon and his family were ordered to report for deportation, despite their pleas to be allowed time for their British paperwork to arrive. Later he found out that 15 minutes after they were sent off on the train their paperwork arrived. After a 36 hour train ride, they arrived in Birkenau where his wife and son were promptly murdered. Leon was then shipped to Auschwitz, Monowitz, did a death march to Gleiwitz, and finally to Buchenwald. He was finally liberated by American troops, but was completely alone in the world. He had made a promise to speak up for human rights, speak out against the war and tell the stories of his life, which he did for the rest of his life. He even gave guided tours of the different camps to groups of people to teach them about what had happened there. After the museum, a few of us journeyed into Piccadelli Square and London's China Town to do a bit of walking, grab a bite to eat, and see some of the local culture. It's truly a beautiful thing to see a vibrant city like London full of such diversity. We even stopped to see a street show with some guys who had a weird comedy show and some Dutch Roping tricks. When we got back to the hotel, we were finally able to check in, take showers, and unpack a little for the next few day. Who knows, one of these days you may see a picture of me embracing my extreme fear of Ferris wheels by going on the London Eye... Stay tuned! :) Hello, all! Welcome to the day all about Anne Frank, which by many testimonies would most likely have loved having a day devoted to just her. :). For those who do not know much about Anne Frank, here is a little snapshot of her. Anne Frank was an audacious Jewish girl living in Amsterdam who got a diary for her 13th birthday, where she started doing a meticulous log of her every day life. This same year, her family was forced into hiding to avoid persecution from the Nazis. Her family, along with 4 other people, hid successfully in the "Secret Annex" which was at the back of her father's pectin business for over 2 years. Unfortunately someone (to this day no one knows who) betrayed them and they were sent to concentration camps; Anne's father Otto was the only one to survive. After returning, he was given Anne's diary which had been kept safe by his secretary, Miep. Otto revised and eventually published Anne's diary, which with its relatability and intense details of the war, captured the hearts of people around the world. Today she is seen as a face for the millions of Jews, homosexuals, disabled persons, Roma and Sinti, and resistance workers who were murdered during WWII. We met our first tour guide of the day, "T", who took us down to the house where Anne Frank grew up in once they moved to Amsterdam (she was originally born in Germany). The house she grew up in was very new in the 1930's and popularity among German Jewish refugees at the time since they had money and could get jobs. Unfortunately by 1938 after Kristallnacht (night of the broken glass) many more German Jews moved to Amsterdam but were no longer welcomed. Today, the house has been restored and staged completely as they believed it would have been in the 1930's with authentic furniture, etc. It is used as a refuge for writers to come from all over the world who can't write freely in their own country. Next, we got a delightful surprise - our guide had gotten us permission to go into the school where Anne went for elementary school. Here school is still in session for another week so as we walked the hallways we were greeted (and chatted up) by very young students. Right inside the school it had a plaque with all of the students who had gone to that school and were murdered during WWII. Our "tour guide" around the classroom was a sweet little boy who told us in Dutch that he was 5 and three-quarters years old. :) He showed us a picture of Anne Frank in the classroom, the heater that was around back in the 1930's that's still there, and where her desk would have been in that classroom. In the hallway he continued his "tour" by showing us the desk of Anne Frank and modeled a book about her. He was absolutely adorable and made me miss my students. It was exciting to finally see a place that represented a story that wasn't static like a museum; here was a remembrance to the children where today kids are living, thriving, learning. We walked by a shop called "OASE". OASE was a snack and ice cream parlor that during WWII still sold those items to Jews. Since it was just around the corner from the school, Anne and her friends visited there often. She prided herself on having her ice cream paid for by the boys. We walked a little further and saw the bookstore on the corner that most people believe is the spot where Anne Frank's original diary was purchased on her 13th birthday. Our tour guide explained that when Jews were finally unable to go to regular schools, Anne transferred to the Jewish Lyceum where her older sister Margot attended. As the war continued, Jewish children started to disappear left and right. Teachers would do attendance and scan the room and students would pantomime when it came to a person missing; an open palm meant they had gone into hiding, the clenched fist meant they had been taken by the Nazis. Anne's family went into hiding when her older sister Margot received her call up letter, which meant she had to report to a processing center to be sent to a "labor camp" in Germany. On the day they left, Anne wore several layers of clothing, had her school bag in one hand and her suitcase in the other. The statue of her outside the house she grew up in has her dressed this way and half turned, as if she was giving one last glance at her old life. It was slightly eerie to go to all of these places, take a walk in her shoes, and then follow the same path to the hiding place. As we neared the hiding place, the bells of the church nearby rang - the same bells that Anne describes hearing in her diary entries. We were able to go into that church briefly before doing our tour inside the hiding place. I have been there before, so it was interesting as I was climbing up the nearly impossibly thin, steep steps to realize that not only was I walking in the footsteps of Anne and the others, but I was also retracing my OWN past footsteps. We walked through the rooms, footsteps echoing in the small, empty spaces we searched the dimly lit rooms for relics of the past; magazines, pictures glued to the walls, peeling white decoration on the glass doors, markings to show the growing height of Margot and Anne, porcelain sinks. It seemed almost wrong to be visiting a place so rich with sorrow, fear, and quiet loneliness. After our tour we were fortunate to be able to go more of the "behind the scenes" with a guide who unlocked the back area to us. The first room we saw was Otto Frank's office. Most of the pieces of furniture in this room were replicas, but the two office chairs and two card catalogue boxes were original. Also, shockingly, was the wallpaper. At some point, Otto had his secretaries take down the wallpaper piece by piece to roll up and save for when they came back. After the war, the wallpaper was replastered to the walls in its original glory. We also got to see the kitchen. Inside were old "Opekta" labels and bottles (the name of Otto's company). But for me, what was remarkable was hearing the floor creaking above me under the weight of all the people's movement in the exhibits above. It resparked the question on my mind as I walked through the creaking Annex above - how on Earth did someone not hear them?? We got the opportunity to also eat at one of the most famous pancake houses in Amsterdam, and yes, it was completely delicious. Since it was already evening, we caught a tram back to the hotel to rewind and repack before our meeting tonight and flight out tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll be switching to Lodon, so stay tuned! *Little fun fact : All children in Amsterdam were taught how to swim due to the number of canals in the city. They also practiced swimming in a pool with a large thick plastic piece with holes in it to help simulate what would happen if they fell into the canals through the ice while skating in winter! Good morning to all of you in the Pacific NorthWest! We had a full day but we are finally back in Amsterdam, safe and sound from our stormy weather. We got the opportunity to sleep in before going to the Dutch Resistance Museum. I have been there before, but since my last trip they have added a children's section, so when we got there we popped straight to the back for those exhibits. (You could easily spent 4+ hours in that museum alone; it's by far one of the top three museums I've been to in any country.) The main idea behind the Dutch Resistance Museum is the three ways people dealt with the issues during WWII: 1) Adapt, 2) Collaborate, or 3) Resist , and why people would choose each. The children's section of it focused on the stories of four real children (now people in their 80's): Henk, Eva, Jan, and Nelly. The most fascinating part for me - apart from all the amazing interactive exhibits and staging to look like their homes - was that each of the children's stories were from a different perspective. The blog got a bit too long when I posted all the details, so I will post some brief information here and then post more details at the end if you are interested in learning more! Henk was a little boy during WWII who was not Jewish or any minority. His story represented OZO (OZO was Oranje Zal Overwinnen, or Orange will Triumph/Conquer, meaning the royal family of Netherlands will triumph over Germany). This meant his family opposed the Germans but remained neutral. Next, we have Eva. Eva was a Jew who went into hiding but was caught and sent into a concentration camp. She survived by being in the infirmary when Germans fled due to Russians liberating the camp. Then, we have Jan. Jan was a little boy during WWII whose father was openly part of the resistance. Because of this, his whole family was in danger and had to eventually go into hiding until liberation. Finally, there's Nelly. Nelly was in her late teens during WWII and was active in the Nazi Youth Organization and daughter to a strong supporter of Hilter and the Nazi Party. At the end of the war her family was sent to prison for their commitment to Hitler but to this day she doesn't feel she has done anything wrong. I felt very connected to this museum, because of the storytelling and personal narratives. It was also very interesting to find Lies's story here as well! We are very fortunate to have met her. Afterwards, we caught a train out to the city of Harlem to see the Corrie Ten Boom House. Corrie was an incredible resistance member who saved 880+ lives during the war. She was jailed, sent to an internment camp, and survived a concentration camp. She spent the rest of her life traveling around the world telling her story (a lot more juicy details about her life will be posted in the "Extra Information" post). After all this hard and heavy information, we needed a break to go and process the information. We grabbed a bite to eat and walked back to the train station to Amsterdam. Tomorrow be a look into the life of Anne Frank - so stay tuned! *If you'd like to read more detailed information and personal narratives about these people, please read the other "Extra Information" blog post after this! :) Hello! This post is in-depth about the amazing stories about the people listed in my Day 3 blog. If you're not interested, simply skip this blog post! Make sure you've already read the "Day 3: Do the Harlem [Shake]" post before this though to keep up with our journey. :)
-- HENK'S STORY: Henk was a little boy during WWII who was not Jewish or any minority. His story represented OZO (OZO was Oranje Zal Overwinnen, or Orange will Triumph/Conquer, meaning the royal family of Netherlands will triumph over Germany). This meant his family opposed the Germans but remained neutral. During the war his family, like all others, were forced to put blackout paper and thick curtains over all of their windows so at night, with no more streetlights, it was hard for the British planes to find Germany. One day a German soldier came to his house to do a ransack to find hidden or illegal items (such as radios or any proof that they opposed the Nazis). Fortunately he was a "good" soldier; he just waited a long time in their house so that others would think he had raided the house before leaving. Henk's two older brothers were forced into hiding since they were of age to be forced to work in Germany. Although he still experienced the winter of starvation, the shortage of food, the harsh conditions, he was not directly associated with the true horrors of the war. Now at the age of 80, my favorite quote from him was: "We haven't learned anything from the war. There are still wards everywhere, but violence has never solved anything. We have to look for other solutions." EVA'S STORY: Eva was a Jew born in Austria. When she was only 9, the Nazis took control of Austria and her family was blamed for everything - unemployment, poverty, etc. Her brother Heinz was violently beaten and called "filthy Jew" by his classmates. Their family moved to Amsterdam for safety until the Germans invaded the Netherlands, shocking many. The "No Jews allowed" signs in public areas and the yellow Star of David on clothing appeared quickly. Her mother said she should feel proud of being a Jew but she only felt humiliated. Her brother Heinz got a letter saying he had to go to Germany to work, which prompted her suspicious parents to take their whole family into hiding; she hid with her mom while her dad hid with her brother. Sometimes they would go see her father and brother with their illegal identity cards but it was always a very frightening gamble. Her entire family was eventually betrayed and sent to Kamp Westerbork before being shipped to Auschwitz. She and her mother were sent one way, her father and brother were sent another. Once all the women were together and moved a little ways away from the train the female guard in charge of them started yelling, "Can you smell that? That's your relatives. They thought they were going for a shower but they were gassed. And now they are being burned. Smell them burning!" (This part of the museum made me feel physically nauseous.) She was able to see her brother and father through a fence once. Her mother got very ill but was taken to the hospital, where Eva went a little while after for her frozen feet. When she woke up, everyone was gone; the Germans had fled due to the Russians arrival and took everyone except those in the infirmary. After the war, she found out her brother and father had been murdered. 8 years later, her mother would marry Otto Frank, Anne Frank's father. Now at age 83, my favorite quote from her was: "I am not sure if you can learn anything from the war. I still cannot understand how people could do such terrible things to their fellow human beings, people they don't even know." JAN'S STORY: Jan was only a little boy during WWII. His father was a preacher who openly opposed what the Germans were doing and said they all had to help people in need. He joined the resistance to help others, known as Fritz the Wanderer (he wandered all over the country helping people), but by doing so put his family in great danger. Once his father justified his opposition by reading Exodus 1:18-19, the bible story of how Egyptian midwives saved Jewish babies during a time when the king ordered them all to be killed; he said it was a story that justified that God said it was okay to lie to save people. His family helped hide an American pilot and listened actively to Orange Radio (station of the resistance movement). His family often hide people in their house, from resistance people to Jewish people. One day the Germans came for his father, who fortunately had been warned ahead of time, but in the end he was found and arrested by a policeman who was part of the NSB (Dutch Nazi Organization). Jan, his mother, and sister all had to split up and go into hiding. Jan was often shuffled from place to place for safety. He no longer could go to school or even go outside. Finally his town was liberated and he was free! His mother, father, and sister all survived, but many from his family were murdered. Now at age 79, my favorite quote from him was: "You can get rid of prejudices by meeting people. I often hear that Muslims do not understand the concept of loving thy neighbor when it comes to Christians or people from other religions. When you get to know Mulslims, you realize that that is simply not true" (he has been involved with Muslims and lived in Pakistan for 13 years). NELLY'S STORY: Lastly, we have Nelly, who I think has the most interesting story. Nelly was in her late teens during WWII. Her father was the leader of the NSB (Dutch Nazi Organization) in her city, along with her mother as an active member. Her father adamantly admired Hitler and believed that Germany had a much better life because of him. She and all of her siblings were part of the youth Nazi organization - the Youth Storm Troops. (Fun fact: those in the organization were called Storm Troopers.) Others in her city called her and her family traitors, dirty Nazis, Nazi scum. People even sang a song about her father who sold a Nazi newspaper called the Volk en Vaderland: "There on the corner there's a time waster, He's not a man he's not a beast but a nasty traitor with his paper in his hand, peddling all the time, sells his fatherland for less than a dime" Nelly became the leader of her Youth Storm Troop, which met twice a week - first as a Senior Section Leader but soon into a Squad Leader. Her father, because of his work in the NSB, soon also became the mayor, giving an impassioned speech about a united Europe under Hitler. But soon the British and Americans were making their way to the Netherlands so her family - minus her father who stayed to help other party members - fled to the countryside. Then the war was ended and Germany had lost. All NSB members, including her father, mother, and siblings, were sent to Kamp Westerbork. Her younger siblings were let go to live with her grandparents but she was detained with her parents for their work in the NSB. She was told that almost all Jews had been murdered by the Nazis, but she ouldn't believe it. She to this day believes that she didn't do anything wrong during WWII. Now at 86, my favorite (seemingly ironic) quotes from her was: "You shouldn't tease others because they are different. I personally experience what it is like to be different and I would not wish that on anyone else." CORRIE TEN BOOM'S STORY: Corrie Ten Boom was a part of a family that was very active in the resistance party. Her family saved 80 people's lives directly by hiding them in her house (which was more of a transit house to rest and eat before their next place) and roughly 800 through other acts. The hiding place in her house was a tiny area behind a false wall that was accessed via behind the lowest shelf in a bookcase. It was ~2 feet deep and ~8 feet long and could hide ~8-10 people if they were standing shoulder to chest squeezed inside. Her family were prominent watchmakers and well known charitable Christians. People coming to them for help referred to people in need as "watches" so they could openly talk about people such as "You can drop your watch off here at 2:00 today and come back for it tomorrow at 8:00". One day during the war a man came in asking for Corrie, telling her that his wife had been put in jail for being a Jew and asked if they had 600 guilders to pay to bribe the jailer. Corrie and her sister said they did not but told him to come back later that day. In the meantime, they collected 600 guilders (thousands today) but when the men came back Corrie's sister saw two cars driving by. Cars used fuel which was incredibly hard to get unless you were a Nazi leader, so her sister realized they had been trapped, and stalled so the 6 people could hide. Finally the Germans beat down the door and began tearing up the entire house. They had proof of links to the resistance because of the 600 guilders and the 100 ration cards they found hidden in the floors. Corrie and her family were arrested. Fortunately they did not find the people in hiding, but those people were too scared to leave not knowing what was happening in and around the house. They had to wait for over 46 hours - standing in the freezing hiding place with no space, human waste covering the floor, until they were rescued by resistance people who knew of the hiding place. In the meantime, Corrie and her family were taken from the local jail to the penitentiary in Scheveningen. Corrie, her sister, and father took the full blame so the rest of her family could be released. Her father ended up dying in prison before the sisters were sent to the Vught internment camp before being shipped to Ravensbruek concentration camp in 1944. Here they had barracks for 400 women to live in, but crammed 1,400 women in - creating a huge concentration of filth, disease, lice, and other horrific situations. Her sister died there a few days before Corrie was released - which was an odd happenstance. She was called out of line in the morning to see the authorities, where she thought she was going to be killed. Instead, they handed her papers to sign which said she had been fed well, taken care of, etc. Once she signed them, she was released. To this day she is not sure why this happened. Later in life, Corrie when back to look over the ledgers to see what happened to the women she knew. She stumbled upon her own record, where her age was listed as "25" not her actual "52" when she was there. Shockingly, just two days after she was released, all women over 50 were murdered. After the war she spent 33 years traveling to 60+ countries to tell her story. She had her moment of forgiveness to the Germans when after she gave a talk in Munich she was approached by a guard who was at Ravensbruek when she was there, who did cruel things to herself and others. He asked for her forgiveness and she said she found the strength of God and forgave him. We were off to an early start today, half-asleep stumbling to get into our van for the 2.5 hour drive ahead of us to get to Kamp Westerbork. Once we arrived, our guide "M" took us to a back room and we watched a film about the camp, that was filmed during WWII. That in an of itself was incredible since it is some of the only video footage found that took place at the camps during WWII. Kamp Westerbork was opened in 1939 and lasted until 1971, but was most well known for being a transit internment camp from 1942-1945. During WWII, many Jewish people greatly feared the Nazi regime and tried to protect their families by moving to the Netherlands. The Netherlands was generally considered to be a safer choice since it had remained neutral during WWI. Unfortunately on May 10, 1940, the Germans invaded the Netherlands and within 5 days fully occupied it. In the beginning, the only change for most Jewish people was that there were German soldiers now living there. However by Autumn of 1940, rules and regulations exclusive to Jews began to appear. Not too long after, all Jews were required to take their personal identification cards to be stamped with a "J" for Jew. By May of 1942, all Jewish people 6 years or older were required to purchase and wear the yellow Star of David. We had a discussion about why someone would go through with these regulations and not try to resist by, say, not wearing the Star of David. However, most people at that time found that if you just simply followed the German rules, the Germans generally did not bother you. The Star of David on the clothing was incredibly important as it made the identification of Jewish people incredibly easy. Only a few weeks after the mandate to wear it, Jewish people started mysteriously disappearing from all over. Many were being shipped over to Kamp Westerbork. After learning about this background history, we spent about 15-20 minutes looking through the exhibits. It was frustring though because all of the signs and information were not translated into English for foreigners. I took a step back and thought about the implications of being frustrated over that - mainly that it is a struggle for visitors to our country too if we adamantly choose to have everything only in English (although I think we are working to improve that). Next, we got the opportunity to go out and be bussed several kilometers to the site of the camp. Kamp Westerbork - as I noted above - was a transit camp. This meant that people (mainly Jews with a small pocket of resistors and Roma) were sent here to stay for a few days to weeks before being sent to their death camp. The four camps that people were sent to were: Berben-Belsen, Sobibor, Auschwitz, and Theresienstadt. Around 107,000 people passed through here between 1942 and 1945 including one of the most famous examples we know - Anne Frank. What I found interesting was that people in Westerbork had heard rumors of camps with gas chambers to murder people but many dismissed the idea because it was truly unfathomable. Some people stayed in Westerbork to do work. When we asked how you could possibly get a job, which would not only allow you to get a little more food but also the opportunity to remain there instead of being shipped out, we were told that it required you to know people who knew people higher up. It is important to note that Westerbork was not a concentration camp; the people there were given three small meals a day and treated neutrally. The reason behind this was not caring for their wellbeing, but was done so that people would go without resistance onto the trains being shipped out to death camps unknowingly. The video I mentioned at the beginning showed only the "positive" sides of the camp - it showed women sewing, men working, people playing sports, and entertainment shows as a form of propaganda to show the importance of the camp's work. After Anne Frank's family was discovered, they were sent to Westerbork and put into the punishment barracks. Normally since they were considered worse than others because they had been in hiding for 2+ years, they would have been sent out on a train the very next day. However, by the time they were sent there, the train system had gone from shipping people out several times a week to no structure. Because of this her family stayed here for 4 weeks. When the train finally came, her family was put on it and shipped off to Auschwitz. The irony of this was it was the very last train that ever sent people from Westerbork to Auschwitz. Nearing the end of the war, 500 people were left at Westerbork to help the Nazis get rid of all evidence that the camp had even existed. This would have been an easy task but the Camp Commander had other ideas. He did not want the camp fully shut down because if it was closed he would be sent from his "cushy" job to fight on the front lines against the Russians. He succeeded with his efforts until after the war where he was tried and sentenced to only 10 years in prison. The camp became a temporary housing development until 1971 when it was closed and the camp was torn down. At that time, no one could foresee that people would want to come and visit the site in the future. For the last 20 years, people have been trying to rebuild Westerbork Kamp. Unfortunately most of it was either lost or destroyed, with only a few bits and pieces being able to be rescued (many barracks were sold to local farmers and some were able to be taken back). There were two main pieces of art, monuments of sorts, that captured me. The first was a large piece of art that was built in May of 1970 (built and kept there despite the camps being torn down in 1971) by artist Ralph Prins who had been at the camp himself. It was representative of a few things. 1) The wall behind the art piece represented the literal location of the beginning of the railroad. 2) The long straight tracks represented the 3 days and 3 night journey to Westerbork. 3) The damaged ends of the railroad referred to the 99,000 of 107,000 who died by gas chambers; they are pulled to the sky to represent arms reaching into the sky with despair. It had 93 railroad ties to represent the 93 trains sending people to their death away from Westerbork. The second monument was in a large area that had darker tiles in the shape of the map of the Netherlands. In long rows, there were tall rectangular stones - at different heights - to represent all of the people they knew about here which totaled roughly 102,000 pieces. On top the stones either had a Star of David (Jews), a flame (Roma or Sinti), or blank (resistors). It was a powerful visualization, topped with pictures sent in of those who were survivors or sent in by survivor's family members. We walked the several kilometers back to the museum before going back 2.5 hours to Amsterdam. Afterwards, my mom and I walked around Amsterdam to grab a bite to eat and generally process all of the information we had gone through today. It is amazing to see the great lengths that this generation is going to to help keep the next generations informed on the history and stories of their past. Tomorrow will be another great adventure, so stay tuned! Good evening (at least it's evening out here!) and welcome to our first "real" day of the trip. Just a quick note - anything that requires any effort, such as uploading pictures into a blog, breaks the WiFi here. I am currently trying to come up with a solution since I think a blog to be effective needs to have some pictures! :) We grabbed a light bite to eat before walking down to meet our guide, T, at Joods historisch museum. Our goal this morning was to take a walk around the old Jewish section of Amsterdam to fill in some background history regarding WWII and how Amsterdam fit into all of the holocaust tragedies. In the 1600's, people began arriving in Amsterdam in large groups. While many different groups came, a majority of those coming were Jewish. At that time, roughly 100,000 people were living in the main area. Mirroring what was to come for American colonists during the 1600-1700's, many people moved to Amsterdam to pursue religious freedom. The King of Spain wanted all citizens to be Catholic, so many moved to Amsterdam with the idea of creating a freedom of religion so they could worship how they saw fit. Since our tour was several hours, I'm going to just try to sum up some of the most interesting facts: *Amsterdam currently has a population of 823,000 people who come from 180+ nationalities; that's more than NYC has to offer! *During Protestant rule, Catholics were not allowed to build large churches so many of them were hidden within areas like the Red Light District. *A monument dedicated to the Jewish Resistance (those who endangered their lives in order to help and protect Jews and other minorities) had an inset part shaped like the 10 commandments, but purposefully left blank. The blank slate of it is to represent that without the commandments and morality there is lawlessness, which happened extensively during WWII. It was placed directly outside and in front of the current City Hall, where all of the laws are today. *We saw the statue of Spinoza, a famous Dutch philosopher who worked closely with Rene Descartes to share the basis of what we call "enlightenment" today. The decor on his outfit was full of small birds (local to Amsterdam) and large parakeets (from many other parts of the world) to represent the symbol of people who have lived in Amsterdam and those who are near all working together. Additionally, he has flowers on him which represent the idea that flowers flourish when communities flourish. *Diamond factories were one of the few jobs Jews could acquire, but they had to work 14-15 hour days in harsh conditions. In the early 20th century, the first unions were made, requiring employers to only allow 8 hour days and have holidays. This caused the diamond industry to vanish and move elsewhere where they could continue using their employees as they saw fit. It's important to take a step back and think about the Jewish Quarter as being not just place for Jewish persons, but also for all immigrants. From the beginning, it was an overcrowded, high poverty area that flooded often. Especially for Jews at the time, it was difficult to make money because the types of jobs they could get were heavily restricted by the Prostestants. It was a bitter journey because Jews finally got freedom and equal rights during the French Occupation in 1796 - allowing them to have any jobs, earn significantly more money, move across to newer housing - only to have them all ripped away yet again right before/during WWII. Just before the war in 1929-1930, an economic crisis/depression happened in Amsterdam and it was easy to use the Jews as a scapegoat due to them flourishing in their jobs with their newly developed freedom which upset many. After this, we spent time exploring the Joods historischal museum and grabbed a bite to eat before heading to the Hallandsche Schounburge (Holland Theatre) to meet our guide M. She explained to us that the building we were "in" used to be a theatre for all of the locals to enjoy for a very long time. During WWII, Germans began by creating it as a "Jewish Only" theatre, which kickstarted to movement into segregation of Jews over the course of a few months. By July 1942, it had been changed to a transit area before people were deported. I used the term "in" above, and the reason is when you walk out to the facade of the building, it looks perfectly normal. But after you step into the building's entry way and through about 200 feet, you step in the main area of the theatre which today has no roof. This was done when it was left as a memorial to represent something normal that holds a deep scar. Interestingly enough, it was next to a nursery school and became a site for many movements of babies and young children to safety. Outside and a little walk away was a plaque and on it were two dates: March 27, 1943 and July 1, 1943. In between the dates was a list of names of resistors during WWII. These men and women risked their lives by working in secret in the Bevolkingsregister, or Official City Archieve. There they would sneak in and do their best to tamper with, or destroy (via fires and flooding), the records of Jewish people. On their official record in addition to having their names, birthdate, etc. was their religious affiliations and family members; this information was used regularly to hunt down and capture Jewish people. Unfortunately by July 1, 1943, they had all been caught and were murdered. The last thought I want to leave for this portion of the day is about rhetoric. When discussing blame and guilt over the autrocities of WWII, many people tried to justify their action by saying, "I am not to blame, I didn't do anything! I only took them [Jewish people] to the station. I didn't kill them." What a shocking and horrifying assertion, to defer guilt and blame upon others. WWII was not a war and genocide done by one person. Hundreds of thousands of people were all bits and pieces, little cogs, in a much larger picture. In Amsterdam, there was a significant amount of people who were German sympathizers compared to the minuscule fraction of resistors. In human rights, we discuss the idea of four positions you can take:
While the first two are generally acknowledged and understood (someone who is being attacked, someone who is doing the attacking), the latter two are different and in a grey zone. A bystander is a person who stood by and saw something bad and did nothing, whereas an Upstander is a person who took a stand to stop something from happening. In WWII, there were people who were obvious victims (Jews, homosexuals, Roma, disabled persons, etc.), obvious perpetrators (Nazis, sympathizers), and obvious upstanders (resistors). But what about the majority of people? What about those who knew what was happening but turned a blind eye? What about the engineers that designed the gas chambers - did they know what they were creating? Did they know they were for humans? Were they threatened into doing it and did so because of fear of death or harm to their families? What about a more complicated situation of the nurses who were rescuing children - they knew that the families of the children were being sent to camps to be murdered and turned a blind eye to that while still saving childrens' lives. Are they bystanders or upstanders or is it possible to be both? We finished our afternoon out by listening to a survivor's tale - Lies Caransa. She was only 4 when the war started and was forced into hiding. Listening to her tale and seeing her still open sorrow when talking about her family member's murders would break anyone's heart. Fortunately we were given time to process all our newly discovered information during dinner (for me it was a strange but delicious GIANT MEATBALL slapped onto a hamburger bun) and through our reflection discussions. Until next time... (tomorrow is off to Westerbork!) Welcome to day zero, the official start to our trip. After getting up (somewhat reasonably) early, mu husband J dropped us off at the airport on the way to work because he is amazing. :) After milling around the airport and realizing that we might be slightly sleep deprived already, we were fortunate enough to go on a straight through flight to Amsterdam. I am usually pretty good at getting some sleep on long plane trips, but this trip was an exception. At least I got to watch some terrible movies that I wouldn't otherwise have had the opportunity to see... :) Once we landed in Amsterdam things began to look a lot more familiar to me; I haven't been to Amsterdam in several years. Getting a taxi from the airport would have been exceptionally expensive so we decided to take a train to the Amsterdam Centraal Station. Once there, we went on a mini adventure to go find Tram #9 to make it to our hotel. I call this an adventure because we managed to keep seeing the correct Tram but not being able to find any of the stops somehow. At our hotel we begin to meet others from our trip. I personally only knew two people out of our 15, so it was interesting to get to see and learn more about people going. The hotel had a slew of kurfuffles - from not having rooms ready, to insisting people didn't exist at the hotel who had already checked in, and extracting people and all of their luggage in the morning. On the bright side, the hotel is definitely in a great location - from here we can get to all of the heart of the Jewish Quarter here, which I will be getting a lot more into detail about later. Our afternoon consisted of wandering around like slow-moving zombies to get coffee and a quick bite to eat at Cafe Koosje - where we learned that fries are often eaten with mayo. At a corner store we got some postcards to send home. There were several gifts that I cannot post pictures of due to their classic "X" rated Amsterdam qualities, but I assure you that you can find most of anything in this vibrant city. By 2:00 we were finally able to get our rooms and we took showers and a MUCH NEEDED nap! At 5:45 we joined the rest of the group to go to a small local cafe to grab a light dinner. We got a goat cheese salad that could blow. your. mind. I also got a glass coke bottle, which for those of you who know me well is a giant success! We took a quick jaunt to the grocery store to pick up toothbrushes that were lost in Hotel Kerfuffle #46 and I got some aero chocolate, which I'm fond of from my days living in New Zealand. Our evening meeting consisted of more detailed introductions; most on this trip are middle/high teachers who have the honor of teaching about the Holocaust with their students! It's always a great joy to think critically and share ideas with others. Now it is currently 10:35 PM and I have been running on 5 hours of sleep for almost 3 days now so I think this is where I will end my blog! Tomorrow will begin our first real day, Day 1, delving into the rich history of Amsterdam's Jewish Quarter. |