With our time in Amsterdam coming to a close we had to make the most out of our last day in the city. As the bulk of the country was on holiday celebrating the Ascension of Christ we were left to finish up a handful of cultural visits before we pack up for our move to Rotterdam. Beginning at Ons’ Lieve Heer op Solder, or the Our Lord in the Attic museum, we had the opportunity to tour a hidden church nestled in the heart of Amsterdam’s downtown. Closing our day off with an audio tour of the Anne Frank House, our group dispersed to hit up all the spots we’d wanted to visit but hadn’t quite had the time for with a bulk of our lot reconvening at the Rijksmuseum national art and history museum.
For centuries the region of the Netherlands and the various governments under which it was managed mandated Christian Catholicism as the dominant faith in the country. Then, in the late 16th century, enlightenment ideals and the Protestant Reformation blew through the country, forcing the closure or conversion of Catholic churches in favor of Protestant ones and instituting and all-out ban on the public practice of non-Calvinist sects. Catholics were let some reprieve to practice their faith in secret, however, resulting in the creation of Huiskerken, or hidden churches, so that the faithful may maintain their communities and traditions. Our Lord in the Attic is the host of the last surviving hidden church in Amsterdam, serving as a museum to display the dedication of the Catholics throughout the 17th through 19th centuries to hold onto their way of life.
The family of Anne Frank faced a less tolerant world when they were forced into hiding in July of 1942. For the past two years the whole of the Netherlands had been reorganized into the Reichskommissariat Niederlandse, a local puppet government to better exert the control of the overarching Nazi regime post-capitulation. Among others deemed ‘lesser’ in the eyes of the fascist regime, the Jewish people suffered greatly during the Holocaust, the systemic execution and genocide of millions across Nazi-occupied territory. Otto Frank, Anne Frank’s father, was wealthy enough to afford a hiding place in a hidden annex of an old warehouse here in Amsterdam. Today we walked through that very annex, getting to experience firsthand the cramped and isolated conditions the family were chained to for over two years in hiding.
Similar to the Catholics, though with much more at stake, the Franks had to remove themselves from society to protect their senses of personhood and identity. Considered quite liberal within the Jewish community, the Franks cared more for the values espoused by their ancestors than upkeeping active religious practice, yet the writings of the daughter Anne Frank mirror quite well the business of the Catholics in their hidden churches. Both struggled to retain their ideas of self, expression, and humanity, and most among all the ideal of living freely, even if that ideal was only possible vicariously. Both relinquished themselves from their environment to call for a better future for not only themselves, but their kin, and used their energy to bolster and support the little presence they maintained in an increasingly exclusionary society. Both are a tale of extraordinary resilience and hope in the face of unyielding circumstance serving as a powerful example and guide to those similarly thrust into hardship.
Light shines the brightest in the darkest of places. Title taken from Isaiah 4:6. Have a nice night, everyone.
– Duncan Dockstader