Amsterdam, Netherlands

Yesterday’s tour of the Jewish Quarter was very moving. This is because we did not just walk the Jewish Quarter, but our wonderful tour guide put names to the tragedy explaining how everything unfolded. This included:
 
Nazis took over The Netherlands in four days. They planned this for one year. In prior wars water was key to protect Amsterdam and they knew how to use water to protect their city by water. What changed? Aircraft.
 
They sent letters to some people to show up at train stations. When no one came they took 450 people from their homes and murdered them.
 
They purposely divided families and took them to different places to break the people. Children were taken from the parents. 
 
They took babies some of whom were one day old and murdered them.
 
They are remembered throughout the Jewish Quarter as outside homes you see plaques on sidewalks showing the names and birth dates of those who were murdered.
 
The memorial lists names in order of last name who were murdered. 
 
Since 2021 when the memorial was completed they have identified many more and continue to do so.
 
We learned about the resistance. They were very brave.
 
The Anne Frank Home/Museum was very moving. 
 
When one of the Frank’s children received a letter to go to the train station, they knew they must go into hiding which they did the next day.
 
There are so many lessons to be learned such as the targeting of people. As we know Germany was torn apart after World War I and then the depression and this allowing the Nazi’s to come into power.
 
In addition to Jews, others were singled out. We saw a memorial for another of the groups singled out.

We also discussed how all of this happened and unfolded. As we learned from school and then reenforced in 2019 on a visit to a Holocaust Memorial while sailing the former Crystal Mozart River Cruise the signing of the Treaty of Versailles following the end of World War I and its harsh penalties on Germany demoralized the country in many ways including financially. This worsened with the Great Depression. The Jews were blamed for all of this through speeches and even cartoon drawings and this all led to the rise of Nazism in Germany. Eventually other groups of people were also targeted including gypsies, gay people, and other groups.

All of this is remembered through the memorials and each year when everything stops for two minutes of silence including TV stations shut down, trains shut down, flights do not take off or land. Everything comes to a halt so people remember, and so children can learn what happened. 
 
There are so many places around the world we have visited and seen through our own eyes through the cruising we have done with Crystal. An example of this is Amsterdam We not only had the opportunity to visit this year but in September of 2024 sailing on Crystal Symphony. 

We covered places we visited yesterday but wanted to mention others. We visited Wertheimpark. This is a park that was used by Jewish people and named after Weritheim. The name was removed during occupation and like most things Jews were forbidden to go inside the park. All they could do is view it from the outside. Inside the park is the Auschwitz Monument a memorial to Dutch Holocaust victims and that is in the photo with the cracked glass, and it has ashes below it.
 
We learned more about the Dutch influence in various areas including names in New York City including street names and some vocabulary. Examples include Brooklyn, Harlem and Wall Street.We learned that there are various sayings that in many ways came to being to insult the Dutch such as Dutch Treat. 
 
Even the New York “Yankees” name has a Dutch connotation. Yankees originated from the Dutch Name “Jan Kees” (remember J is pronounced like a Y) and this means John Cheese. This name was used to refer to themselves or later to mock the English Colonists.
 
On the lighter note from yesterday, one of the photos shows apple pie, with and without whipped cream. Last year our tour guide took us for French Fries which is very well known in this area. Likewise, a popular dessert is Apple Pie, so we stopped and sat outside a café to enjoy Apple Pie and made this our lunch. 

Last evenings Waterside Dinner Menu.

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​We ended up having dinner in our suite last night. We needed time to process all we saw and some quiet time.


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This is the daily Reflections Program from today.

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We decided to stay on-board Crystal Serenity today instead of returning to Amsterdam. We have another tour tomorrow in Dover to look forward to. 

Cheers,

​Anne Marie & Keith