First day of my holiday and since the weather forecast is far from positive me and Eva decided to make the most of the sunshine this morning and head to Amsterdam. We haven't been to the city for a good few years, but every time we go we do something touristy. In the past we've done a canal tour, and the Amsterdam Dungeon, this time we visited Anne Frank's house.
Pretty much everyone knows the tale of Anne Frank. She and her family were Jews who hid from the Nazis, helped by some of her father's staff. Their hiding place was betrayed and they were split up and sent to various concentration camps, Anne and her older sister died in Bergen-Belsen a month before the camp was liberated. Her father Otto was the only one to survive, when he returned to Amsterdam one of the women that had helped shelter them gave him Anne's diary, which she had saved after the soldiers had left. The Diary of Anne Frank is one of the world's best-known books.
The house itself is, as you would expect, very small. The walls are tastefully dotted with some exerpts and quotes from the diary, and there are screens that show video clips giving some of the background, and interviews with various people connected to the family. When you actually see the rooms themselves you realise how small the space was for so many people. What made it more real for me is that my youngest sister is around the same age as Anne was when she was living there, trying to imagine my sister cooped up in such a small space helped me realise how hard it would have been on Anne. No fourteen year old should live like that. If you are ever in Amsterdam then you really should visit it, if only to get some perspective of what various Jewish families experienced in order to escape persecution, the Franks were not the only Jewish family in hiding, hundreds of families were protected and sheltered across Europe.
After the house me and Eva went to clear the cobwebs with a cup of tea and some food.
Eva had a sandwich, I had a pecan brownie and a cup of tea. This is rather posh tea, the bloke that gave me the hot water looked rather confused when I asked for milk to go with it, but it was very nice in the end, even though I was using coffee creamer as a milk substitute.
We also then went for ice cream at a place Eva knows which does the most delicious ice cream ever. It genuinely tastes like frozen cream, rather than sugary ice milk. Really yummy!
Have a nice evening everyone!
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