Amsterdam (Rough Guide) - Martin Dunford [62]
The Old Jewish Quarter and Eastern docklands | The Plantagebuurt |
Wertheimpark and De Hollandsche Schouwburg
Across the street from the botanical gardens, beside the canal, is the pocket-sized Wertheimpark, where the Auschwitz monument is a simple affair with symbolically broken mirrors and an inscription that reads Nooit meer Auschwitz (“Auschwitz – Never Again”). It was designed by the Dutch author and artist Jan Wolkers, who first came to prominence in the 1960s with a string of barbed novels – Candyfloss, Oegstgeest Revisited – railing against his Calvinist upbringing.
Further east down Plantage Middenlaan is another sad relic of the war, De Hollandsche Schouwburg, at no. 24 (daily 11am–4pm; closed Yom Kippur; free; www.hollandscheschouwburg.nl). Originally a theatre where Jewish artists could perform without let or hindrance, the Germans turned it into a Jews-only theatre in October 1941, and the main assembly point for Amsterdam Jews prior to their deportation in the summer of the following year. Inside, there was no daylight and families were interned in conditions that foreshadowed those of the camps they would soon be transported to. The front of the building has been refurbished, with the ground floor now holding a list of the dead and an eternal flame; a fifteen-minute film tells the story of the theatre before the German occupation, complete with examples of the songs of various key performers. On the floor above, there’s also an excellent small exhibition on the plight of the city’s Jews, with lots of occupation photographs labelled in Dutch, with an English translation available at reception. By contrast, the old auditorium at the back of the building has been left as an empty, roofless shell. A memorial column of basalt on a Star of David base stands where the stage once was, an intensely mournful monument to suffering of unfathomable proportions.
As a counter to this record of remorseless suffering, have a look at the commemorative plaque across the street on the wall of Plantage Kerklaan 36. This building once housed the municipal register of births and deaths, records which were extremely helpful to the Germans and their Dutch collaborators in tracking down Jews and young men they wanted to conscript as forced labour. In March 1943 twelve members of the Resistance, dressed as policemen, entered the building, sedated the guards – who were taken to the zoo next door – then blew the place up; almost all of the twelve were caught and executed – their names are on the plaque.
The Old Jewish Quarter and Eastern docklands | The Plantagebuurt |
Vakbondsmuseum
The Vakbondsmuseum (Trade Union Museum; Tues–Fri 11am–5pm, Sun 1–5pm; closed for refurbishment till 2011) at Henri Polaklaan 9 is a handsome structure. It was erected for the Diamond Workers’ Union in 1900 to a distinctive design by Hendrik Petrus Berlage (1856–1934), who incorporated Romanesque features – such as the castellated balustrade and the deeply recessed main door – within an Expressionist framework. From the outside, it looks very much like a fortified mansion, hence its nickname De Burcht (“Stronghold”), but this design was not just about Berlage’s architectural whims. Acting on behalf of the employers, the police – and sometimes armed scabs – were regularly used to break strikes, and the union believed members could, in an emergency, retreat here to hold out in relative safety.
The museum’s striking, brightly coloured interior develops these stylistic themes with a beautiful mixture of stained-glass windows, stone arches, painted brickwork and patterned tiles. In the foyer is a bust of the remarkable Henri Polak, both a part-time rabbi and founder of the ANDB, the Diamond Workers’ Union, which became the city’s most powerful union. A Socialist who was committed to change via constitutional means, Polak organized the diamond workers as never before and was evangelical