Anne Frank House

Anne Frank House, originally uploaded by BiddieB.

Back to Amsterdam.

So, my friend Natalie and I visited Amsterdam June 18-22 and had an underwhelming time there. I didn't like the city. It was expensive, all there was for me to eat (being mostly vegetarian) was pasta, we didn't meet any interesting people there and I'll say it again, because it pissed me off so much, it was so frickin' expensive. It cost me $20 Canadian to have a vegetarian lasagna dinner at a hippie little vegetarian place. Yee-gawds! The galleries were just about the same. There are no student discounts for any of the museums. I guess we're spoiled in London where most of the galleries and museums are free now.

Of course, the most important historic sight in Amsterdam is Anne Frank's house. I'm ashamed to admit it but I've never read her diary. I know! So bad. But I know her story. How can you not?

We went in the late afternoon and there was a massive line, if we'd gone a little later, say at dinner time it would have been less crowded.

The first thing that struck me about Anne Frank's house was just how beautiful it looked. If there wasn't a line up outside of it you would never guess it was anything more than a fancy condo, let alone a historic location of WWII. The outside is quite modern and the neighborhood is full of stunning canal homes with modern windows and granite counter tops. I was reminded of a David Sedaris essay called "Possession" where he talks about the house as if he was buying the real estate. (You can listen to it HERE).

It really is quite an impressive flat. Sure, it's too small for six people to live for two years but I'd always imagined it to be a cramped little attic, where they had to walk carefully on beams careful not to fall through the ceiling. This is not at all the case.

The most depressing thing about the hideaway is that the windows had to be covered all the time. Two years without sunlight would be such torture.

One of the most tragic things about Anne Frank's story is that she died just weeks before her camp was liberated. She never knew that her father was still alive.

So much has been written about the holocaust and I don't have any more wisdom to shed on it. But being there in the house, I thought it would make it more real for me, that I would feel part of their pain and be enlightened about their suffering. But I didn't. It put me in a somber mood, but as with most museums I was more interested in the people that were visiting it now. Watching how they interact with the other people in the rooms. Like one older woman who walked right to the front very long queue to see the original diary. All I could think was, 'what a nazi.'

At the end of the tour there's a forum room where a video screen asks topical questions like "Should police officers be aloud to wear turbans" and "does the government have the right to library records." Everyone in the room can sit beside a button to answer yes or no. It was interesting to see the split in just a small group of people. Of course, most of the questions that were asked were too black or white, I think the answers involve more shades of gray.

"One single Anne Frank moves us more than the countless others who suffered just as she did, but whose faces have remained in the shadows. Perhaps it is better that way: if we were capable of taking in the suffering of all those people, we would not be able to live."
Primo Levi

“I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.” - Anne Frank