Anne Frank

House Museum

Scenic and emotional day. Let's start with the scenery; we got plenty of it wandering around the alleyways and concentric canals here in Amsterdam. The emblematic narrow buildings follow the architectural style of the Dutch Golden Ages, a unique and peculiar Dutch interpretation of the Baroque that developed between the 16th and 17th centuries. We also saw plenty of canal boats; many of them were carrying tourists (with picnic lunches and alcoholic drinks), and many others were carrying tourists with headsets (available in 19 languages). It was a scenery show.

The emotion, of course, came from visiting the Anne Frank House Museum. "The Diary of Anne Frank" is known to most every school child; Beth taught it to innumerable classes. During World War II, Anne Frank hid from Nazi persecution with her family and four other people in concealed rooms, in the rear building, of the 17th-century canal house, later known as the Secret Annex. She died in a Nazi concentration camp; her wartime diary was published in 1947. We toured the Auschwitz concentration camp many years ago, those memories forcefully flooded back today. This story of persecution/prejudice/discrimination is, unfortunately, timeless.