Amsterdam

One of the parts of this trip I was most looking forward to, simply because it was so unexpected, was a trip to Amsterdam during my long layover. While I didn't end up with as much time as I had hoped out in the city just due to the complications of travel, I did get to see the Anne Frank House and I was going to be perfectly satisfied if that's all I got to do.

The line wrapped around the building and through a little plaza. As hot, tired, and frustrated as I was by the time I got in the back of the line, I teared up a little at the thought of that many people being willing to wait so long to walk through an empty house. It made me think about what Anne Frank represents to people today. I think we admire her plucky spirit, her bravery, and we are moved by the loss of such potential. She also represents all of the children, some 1.5 million, who were murdered in the Holocaust. For me, she also represents a commitment to document. So many times in her writing, she thinks ahead to sharing her words with the world. I am always interested in diaries and journals because they are written as life happens, rather than looking back with perspective. Alexandra Zapruder talks a lot about that in regard to her book, Salvaged Pages, which I highly recommend.

While in line, I started chatting with the two people in front of me. It turns out they were teachers from Missouri on a grant to fund a Holocaust study tour through Europe! Talking to them made the time go by quickly and we shared email addresses and book suggestions. :)

Walking through the house felt surreal. When I got to the room with the bookcase, the bookcase that hid the staircase to the hidden annex, I just sucked in my breath. As I ascended that narrow staircase and entered the rooms where the 9 people stayed, blacked out windows and tiny spaces, my breathing got more and more shallow. There was a moment when I found myself alone in one of the rooms (Peter's room, I believe). I could hear the wood creaking as others walked above me. I could hear the echo of voices below. I imagined the fear of the hidden people as being almost palpable. I can't even begin to imagine that level of terror. And terror you don't get a break from, but rather terror that lives with you, terror you breathe, terror that flows through your veins all the time.

When I teach this, I try to make my kids understand that most of us CAN'T understand. I remind them of the 2011 tornadoes, the waves of fear and terror as we cowered in basements and closets during the different waves of weather. It was scary. People were hurt. People lost homes, and people died. But EVEN THEN, we knew it would end, and probably sooner rather than later. We had breaks between fronts. I know there are children living in abusive homes who can relate to the constant companion of terror, but most of us (thankfully) cannot.

At the end of my tour through the house, they have  pages of her diary preserved in glass cases. I looked at her loopy, girlish handwriting, and I imagibed that soft-eyed, brown-haired girl crouching over her desk, desperately trying to tell her story. And I knew that's why I feel this call. I have to share Anne's story, and Gerda's, and Solomon's, and Yitzak's, and Frances's, and Sonja's. My students have to carry those stories with them out into a world that is crying out for someone to be the good.