Day 5 was a very educational day. We started the day by meeting in the lobby at 9:20 am and heading into the city of Amsterdam at around 9:30 am. There we went on a tour of the Anne Frank house. This tour encapsulated some floors of Otto Frank’s, Anne Frank’s Father, office building, as well as the secret annex where Anne Frank, as well as 7 other Jews, hid from persecution. Along this tour, we learned about the history of the Holocaust and of Anne Frank’s story. During World War II, as Nazis spread throughout Europe, Jews were discriminated against. This discrimination began as rules separating Jews from everyone else. Some of them included that Jews had to wear visible yellow stars on their clothing, they couldn’t ride bikes, they could only frequent Jewish owned barber shops, and they had a curfew at 8pm. Soon, however, these rules turned into violent shows of antisemitism, with Jewish business being raided and destroyed. Eventually, Jews and others were captured and sent away to concentration camps where they were forced to do hard labor or were murdered.
Anne Frank, her family, and another Jewish family went into hiding as a result of this violence. They hid in a place called the secret annex, a hidden section of the office building. The entrance was hidden behind a bookshelf that could hinge out from the wall, revealing a door. They hid there for more than two years, never leaving and never looking out the window. While touring Anne Frank’s house, they also displayed excerpts from Anne Franks dairy. She wrote about how they had to be completely silent at night so they would not get caught. It sounds absolutely terrifying, and I could not imagine what she went through. Eventually, they were discovered and sent away to concentration camps. Otto Frank was the only one to survive.
While it is a difficult topic to discuss, it is extremely important that Anne Frank, and other Holocaust stories are continued to be told. This history cannot be forgotten, or else we may repeat it, and cause even more suffering. These stories also help humanize the Holocaust. About 6 million Jews were murdered, but this is a hard number to fully grasp, and to many is just a number. By telling these individual stories, and understanding the amount a single, individual person had to face, we can begin to fathom what that 6 million represents. I am Jewish, and grew up with the Jewish value that every person is a unique universe. They are a universe of those they love, of those who love them, of experiences, likes, dislikes, and of what makes them special. During the Holocaust, 6 million universes were extinguished, and we will never get them back. We must tell these stories so that they will be remembered, and so that we truly understand the atrocity of the Holocaust.
After visiting and reflecting on Anne Frank’s house, we were able to go off on our own. I grabbed lunch with some friends and visited a cat museum. There, they had all sorts of cat-themed art, as well as real cats roaming around! In the evening, we had dinner with some Pitt alumni. We were able to talk with them about their experiences at Pitt, and get insight into the engineering fields, as well as the adjacent tech fields they worked in.
Sadly, today was our last day in Amsterdam, and we will head out for Rotterdam tomorrow morning. I am sad to leave because I really enjoy the atmosphere of Amsterdam, but I am excited to see a new place! As soon as dinner was over, I headed back to the hotel to rest, pack, and prepare to see Rotterdam!
