5/15/25.
Today, we attended a significant cultural and historical monument in Amsterdam – the Anne Frank House. Seeing this site was a powerful moment as it humanized the effects of the holocaust, by showing where people hid during this atrocity. A specific part of the site that was striking to me was the lines marking the growth of Anne Frank’s height on the wall. According to this, she grew 13 cm during her time in hiding. This was extremely striking to me for 2 reasons. First, while the figure of six million Jewish people being genocided is striking, it is difficult to conceptual; seeing these markings reenforces the emotional weight of the atrocities by individualizing and humanizing it. Moreover, this part of the site shows how Anne Frank was robbed of her childhood, deprived of the ability to simply go outside or look out the window. The Anne Frank house acts as a place to understand the atrocities of the past and prevent them from reoccurring in the future. Understandably, pictures were not allowed within this site, so they do not appear in this post.
After an emotionally heavy morning, some of us attended the Van Gogh museum. As he is an acclaimed artist, seeing his work was an extremely great opportunity that I am so grateful to have. Interestingly, I learned that his art reflected his mental decline, and his mental decline can, to some extent, be tracked through the shadings and colors he used. Apparently, as his mental health devolves, later in his career, he switched to more blue and green tones.Some pictures of his works are included below:
In the evening, we all attended the alumni dinner where I had the amazing opportunity to speak to Pitt alumni currently living in Amsterdam or surrounding regions. While I enjoyed speaking to all of the alumni, my conversation with Mr. Nick Ferrara lasted particularly long. Through discussion with him, I learned about many differences in the cultures and societies of the EU and the US. For instances, I mentioned how I noticed all prices seem to end in a 5 or 0 here, and Nick informed me the €0.01 and €0.02 are not currently being circulated in the Netherlands. I was extremely grateful to speak to all of the alumni and learn from their experiences and insights!