Today has been incredibly tiring (I wandered around all day... I regret not doing any cardio, Jon...), but I seem (tentatively speaking, of course... I could be exhausted tomorrow...) to have beat the jet lag with few negative effects. It is roughly 15:00 (3 PM) now here, which was 08:00 (8 AM) for me two days ago in South Dakota, and I have already done my wandering for the day.
I started early heading west roughly in the direction of the Anne Frank house, where she and her family and four other Jews hid for two years during the German occupation of the Netherlands, a story made famous in her diary, published posthumously by her father, Otto Frank, after he learned of her death at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. I knew, prior to coming, that Anne was a contemporary of Opa's (both were born in 1929: Anne was only 5 months and 7 days older than Opa), but to see the conditions, the small quarters in which all eight of the hidden people could not move during the day for fear of alerting workers below to their presence... I cannot describe the feeling... I cried afterward: for Anne, for Opa, who lived in a similar world of terror and persecution, for my Oma, whose generation of Gentile German children could not have understood what was being done to their Jewish friends, and for my sister and family, who I am indescribably glad never knew the experience of being told to be quiet for the sake of their lives.
It has been only two days, and I have yet to reach a city relevant to Opa's story (I anticipated that my arrival in Vienna would signal the start of the emotional journey this trip will be), but today Amsterdam showed me that this will, without question, be a life-changing project of incredible emotional weight...
I headed east then to Mr. Visserplein, where I toured the Jewish History Museum (a beautiful, if somewhat predictable, collection of Jewish artwork and historical artifacts; I was most impressed by a dark postwar painting depicting the faceless leaders of the Nazi regime, Goering and Speer, among others, at the Nuremberg Trials surrounded by crows and ravens) and then the Portuguese Synagogue, a Sephardic place of worship built in 1675.
It was suggested to me by a woman on the plane from Minneapolis, and has been called by some the most beautiful synagogue in the world. I am far from an expert on such matters, but I cannot say that I disagree. It is a place without electricity (large windows allow light to enter in the day and hundreds, if not thousands, of candles light the synagogue at night), with powerful columns and impressive decoration, straight-backed pews, and a vaulted ceiling.
It is a place where even I, neither religious nor Jewish by upbringing, felt a remarkable affinity for my own 'Jewishness.' I was struck especially by the 'Winter Synagogue,' where services were held during and after the war when the congregation was at its smallest. The contrast with the enormous Esnoga is horrifying: one of Europe's largest Jewish congregations was cut to fit in a small room by Nazi hatred.
I know now that I cannot know what this project will mean... This is far bigger than myself, already far heavier that I imagined it would be. I worry what will happen at Drancy...
In any case, I must move forward. Tonight I will eat again and then pack. I will be up at 7:00 AM to shower and walk to Centraal, where I take my first train (to Frankfurt, I think), and then to Vienna. I am not certain I will be able to post tomorrow, as I am uncertain whether the train will have WiFi access. If I cannot update, I will update you all as soon as possible!
Until next time.
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