Holland – Day 4
Anne Frank and Churches – April 15
I warn you now: if you have read the Diary of Anne Frank and ever find yourself in Amsterdam, I don’t think that the 
Anne Frank House is a must see museum. We woke up at around 7:30 this morning in order to start making our way to the museum early to avoid any lines – 
remember, the other day we ended up not going because of the line at around 6:00 PM! Even though we arrived by 9:15 this morning, the line was around the block, and the estimated wait was not promising. Do you know how long it took? I waited outside in the cold for approximately THREE HOURS! Granted, unlike Malka and Mom, I didn’t always stand and wait on the line – sometimes I walked away to close by shops, other times I sat on chairs, benches, or even on the curb. The weather was brutal, and Malka had to get gloves and Mom got a hat with an enormous pom-pom attached to the top. A little further back behind us on line was a group of vocalists. They were all blonde, and a lot of them had amazing curls, but their physical description is a digression. In the last hour on line, we were all serenaded by their lovely choral repertoire, and I even got some footage of their singing!
Strangely enough, I have never read Anne Frank’s diary, so I did get something out of the museum in terms of her story and what happened throughout her hiding. But, as I said before, the museum won’t provide anyone who has read the book with much additional information. The visitor is first introduced to the Frank family’s business and the people who helped them in their hiding. We then walked through the secret passageway behind the swinging bookcase into the quarters in which Anne’s family, and four other Jews lived. Anne refers to this area as the Secret Annexe. After the Franks and their friends were caught, the premises was cleared out, and remains empty to this day. Each room has a black and white reconstruction of how it would have looked when Anne was living there, but other than that, the only things on display are quotes from her diary and sparsely spaced artifacts (magazine clippings, board games, and the like).
The final part of the museum was an interactive video display entitled Free2Choose in which visitors were able to vote on controversial issues in our modern world – free speech, hate speech, religious expression, and so on. I thought the exhibit was very interesting because it relates directly to what I speak about when I give tours at the Museum of Tolerance back in New York City.
We ate our lunch at the museum’s cafe, and I was very pleasantly surprised by their selection of cheese sandwiches – 
I’m not usually a fan of museum sandwiches! On the wall of the cafe were four large photographs of girls (each photograph featured three girls). It turns out, all of these pieces of art were by Rineke Dijkstra – she’s popping up everywhere! Her concept behind the display was to encapsulate Anne’s person through these girls, all the same age as Anne when she died. The girls featured in the photographs come from all over – Barcelona, Tel Aviv, Milan, Pisa, and Berlin.
We then quickly visited the neighboring Westerkerk (kerk = church), but it wasn’t very interesting so we didn’t stay in there for too long. It might have been more interesting if “they” could locate where in the church Rembrandt was buried. Our final destination, then, was Oude Kerk (oude = old), back in the Red Light District. Did I mention that this is Malka’s favorite area of Amsterdam?!?! We ambled through the side streets, making sure to stop by Condomerie again so that Malka could buy some silly postcards for her friends. We spent a lot of time in Oude Kerk, something I wasn’t expecting. We were given a map 
with a lot of information on it in regards to the history of the building, and so we spent some time sitting and reading. Did you know that Rembrandt got married in this building? Did you know that Saskia, his wife, is buried there? Did you know that the Oude Kerk is the oldest building in Amsterdam? Well, now you do! From a side room within the church, my mom and I were able to sneak some pictures of the prostitutes in the street outside. The room is used for an artist’s current project called “Food for Thought,” but when we visited, it was left unoccupied for us to take a look at the art’s progress. Unfortunately, the link I provided, though Sara Vrugt’s (the artist) official website, doesn’t show much of the current project.
Our day hasn’t been filled with too much excitement, as we spent about four and a half hours dedicated solely to the purpose of visiting the Anne Frank House. The experience was quite exhausting – my feet and back are tired, and Malka and Mom’s hips hurt them. I think we definitely could use some rest right now! As for the rest of the day? We’ll probably just go out and have a small and simple dinner, and maybe take a short stroll.
Now, to plan for the activities of tomorrow!
