Amsterdam (Rough Guide) - Martin Dunford [55]
The Old Jewish Quarter and Eastern docklands
Once one of the marshiest parts of Amsterdam, the narrow slab of land between the curve of the River Amstel, Oudeschans and Nieuwe Herengracht was the home of Amsterdam’s Jews from the sixteenth century up until World War II. By the 1920s, this Old Jewish Quarter, aka the Jodenhoek (“Jews’ Corner”), had become one of the busiest parts of town, crowded with tenement buildings and smoking factories, its main streets holding scores of open-air stalls, selling everything from pickled herrings to pots and pans. Sadly, the war put paid to all this and in 1945 the district lay derelict – and postwar redevelopment has not treated it kindly either. Its focal point, Waterlooplein, has been overwhelmed by a domineering town and concert hall, the Stadhuis en Muziektheater, which caused much controversy at the time of its construction, and the once-bustling Jodenbreestraat is now bleak and very ordinary, with Mr Visserplein, at its east end, little more than a busy traffic junction.
Picking your way round these obstacles is not much fun, but persevere – among all the cars and concrete are several moving reminders of the Jewish community that perished in World War II, most memorably the late seventeenth-century Esnoga (Portuguese synagogue), one of the city’s finest buildings. Close by, four other synagogues have been merged into the fascinating Joods Historisch Museum (Jewish Historical Museum), celebrating Jewish culture and custom. There’s a Rembrandt connection here too: in 1639 the artist moved into a house on the Jodenbreestraat and this has been restored as the Rembrandthuis, which, in addition to several period rooms, has a fine collection of the great man’s etchings and features temporary displays on him and his contemporaries. From the Rembrandthuis, it’s a brief stroll south to Hermitage Amsterdam, an art gallery used for lavish temporary exhibitions of fine and applied art on loan from the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.
Immediately to the east of the Old Jewish Quarter lies the Plantagebuurt, a well-heeled residential area that’s home to the city’s botanical gardens, the Hortus Botanicus, as well as the Artis Zoo and the excellent Verzetsmuseum (Dutch Resistance Museum).
Moving on from the Plantagebuurt, it’s a short hop north to the reclaimed islands of the Oosterdok, dredged out of the River IJ to accommodate warehouses and docks in the seventeenth century. The Oosterdok is one part of the Eastern docklands, a vast maritime complex which once spread right along the River IJ to link with the Western docklands. Industrial decline set in during the 1880s, but the assorted artificial islands of the eastern docklands – often lumped together as Zeeburg – are currently being redefined as a residential and leisure district, featuring some startling modern architecture and several award-winning buildings.
The Old Jewish Quarter and Eastern docklands |
The Old Jewish Quarter
Throughout the nineteenth century and up until the German occupation, the Old Jewish Quarter – the Jodenhoek – was a hive of activity, its main streets lined with shops and jam-packed with open-air stalls, where Jews and Gentiles traded in earnest. Fatefully, it was also surrounded by canals and it was these the Germans exploited to create the ghetto that foreshadowed their policy of starvation and deportation. They restricted movement in and out of the quarter by raising most of the swing bridges (over the Nieuwe Herengracht, the Amstel and the Oudeschans) and imposing stringent controls on every other access route. The Jews, readily identifiable by the yellow Stars of David they were obliged to wear from May 1942, were not allowed to use public transport, ride bicycles or own telephones, and were placed under a rigorously imposed curfew. Meanwhile, roundups and deportations had begun shortly after the Germans arrived, and continued into 1945. By the end of the war, the Jodenhoek was deserted, and as the need for wood and raw