Today marked our final full day in Amsterdam, and it was an enlightening one. We had the opportunity to explore two museums, both of which shed light on the experience of hiding from religious persecution, albeit with different outcomes.
We began our day with a quick metro ride to Central Station. Despite having to switch metros halfway, we all made it on time. Our first stop was the Our Lord in The Attic Museum, which is housed within three interconnected buildings. During the 16th and 17th centuries, as the Protestant Reformation swept through Europe, Catholic churches in most countries were destroyed or stripped of their non-Protestant features. However, the Netherlands’ tolerant environment allowed Catholicism to be practiced in secret. The museum we visited was once a hidden church belonging to a wealthy German immigrant who made a fortune. When the Reformation arrived, he combined three buildings to create this secret church, which had 150 members and spanned three stories. Despite being illegal, the church continued to operate even after the death of its founder. Although the church is still occasionally used for mass and weddings, structural issues, such as the lack of walls across the three buildings, are causing it to deteriorate.
After a tasty lunch of the famous fries, we made the decision to visit the Rijksmuseum to admire its famous artwork. The building’s architecture and the garden was stunning, and we could have easily spent hours just exploring and standing outside in the garden and fountains alone. However, my main focus was on seeing the Van Gogh and Rembrandt pieces, and I was definitely not disappointed. Exploring museums is not one of my typical favorite things to do when visiting a new city, but I am so grateful for the opportunity to experience it. We spent a couple of hours wandering through the museum before rejoining the rest of the group for our tour of the Anne Frank House.
The Anne Frank House, a museum of great importance and great sadness. The tour provided a wealth of new information about her family and the others who lived with them. Eight people in total were hidden in the annex of Anne’s father’s office building, and tragically, only her father survived the Holocaust. The tour also highlighted the courageous efforts of the three main helpers who assisted Anne Frank and her family. Learning about their imprisonment and their immediate willingness to help those in need was truly eye-opening. The small, cramped rooms where they hid, accessible only through a hidden door behind a bookshelf, emphasized the incredible challenges they faced. Anne Frank’s aspiration to become a journalist or novelist was also revealed during the tour. Despite the bleak circumstances, she wrote short stories and poems and read extensively at the urging of her father. In 1944, they were discovered and sent to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Anne Frank tragically died of typhoid at Bergen-Belsen.
To put it mildly, taking the tour of the Anne Frank House was moving. The way the material about her life was presented and the presentation itself left me feeling incredibly moved and impressed. It was an experience I wish everyone may have, to be in the same house where she lived and see the posters that have been on the walls, her diary, the furniture, and the staircases. This is a must see if you find yourself in Amsterdam.
I am very excited to experience all that Rotterdam has to offer because Amsterdam was incredible!