Anne Frank

Here it is my final day in Amsterdam. Our meetings finished up sooner than expected, so I had most of yesterday and all of today to do as I pleased. We've been galavanting around Amsterdam shopping, sightseeing, riding on the canal and even took a quick jaunt throught the Red Light District (gasp! don't worry, it was fast, we were only looking and I had my eyes closed most of the time.) I have a lot to catch up on in the blog from the past 2 days. The first of the week was pretty boring, unless you want to hear all about the inside of a Nike conference room in Hilversum. I hope to break it all down in a series of blogs when I get home, because I don't have much time to sit down and type while I'm here. I did want to get a bit down now, though.


Today we had the opportunity to visit the Anne Frank house as it's only a mile or so from our hotel. We walked down after breakfast and were able to walk right in to the museum. You enter the museum from a few buildings down, watch a few brief little videos then progressively work your way through the warehouse below then into the offices above and Secret Annex beyond that.

In reading and studying the Diary of Anne Frank in school, I always pictured their hidden area as a small little room tucked into the attic of a little row home. I was quite surprised at the size of the space they had to hide in, but then I related back to the fact there were 8 people and they couldn't leave. They also don't have any of the furniture in the space. I know my apartments have always looked bigger until I moved in.

It was a humbling experience for me to remember back to the story of Anne Frank and to be in the spot where it actually happened. I was able to look out the window she used to peek from and look down to the street where she saw many of her friends carted away. I saw the original wallpaper she had pasted with pictures of movie stars to help brighten her mood. I was able to look into the gardens at the actual tree she used to look at to lighten her mood. I saw the concentration camp registration cards of her family and the Van Pels.

It's one thing to learn of the Holocaust and read of the atrocities that happened. It's entirely another to be in the place that it happened, to see the yellow "Joden" star, to see the photographs of the SS carting away real people and be standing on the very street the photographs were taken on.