How often do we hear the words “Never Forget!” after a tragedy, either a man-made terror act or a natural disaster? Sadly, it seems like it’s frequently these days. Inevitably the hurt and shock of an event fade with time, yet I think it’s important to always remember, both to honor those who died as well as learn from the lessons of the past.

The bulk of our day Friday was spent learning about and remembering the Amsterdam Holocaust victims as well as those who tried to save as many as they could through their resistance activities. Amsterdam has a historic Jewish quarter that houses several locations of significance. We visited two of them on Friday — The Resistance Museum and the National Holocaust Museum.

Before the start of WWII Amsterdam had a thriving Jewish population of about 75,000-80,000. Drawn by Amsterdam’s history of religious tolerance, the Jewish population flourished economically and socially. There was never a Jewish ghetto in Amsterdam as in so many other European cities. That all changed virtually overnight with the German occupation in 1940.

I really can’t describe the range of emotions I felt as we toured the museums and other important sites. It’s one thing to read accounts or visit a museum here in the states, but it’s another to walk the halls of the school that was used to smuggle children to safety or the theater that was used as a deportation center.

Both museums were excellent, and extremely thought provoking in different ways. The Holocaust Museum left me wondering how and why such evil could exist, and the Resistance Museum made me question what I would have done. I always thought the answer to what I would have done was simple, but when you read the first hand accounts and learn of the terror of living through the Nazi occupation the answer isn’t that simple. I found the visits left me with a lot of questions with no straightforward answers.

Would I have been willing to risk my life, my home, my loved ones? Jim’s grandmother was a German Jew by heritage, who later married a Catholic and converted. Thankfully she had been born in the US, but if she had been in Germany would she have survived? Would Jim have been murdered because of a Jewish grandparent?

I thought it was a profound and sad sign of our times that entry into the Holocaust Museum was heavily guarded. There was an outdoor bag check, followed by entry into an outer chamber, and finally entry into the building. The safety precautions were brought home on Saturday when several tram stops near our hotel were shut down because of a Palestinian protest in Dam Square. We later learned that is an almost daily occurrence.

I also learned that the few Amsterdam Jews who survived the Holocaust weren’t welcome back with open arms after the war. The ill and traumatized victims returned to a hostile environment to find their homes occupied and their businesses gone. At one point the government even tried to get returning victims to pay back taxes for the time they had been imprisoned!

It is estimated that only 5,000-6,000 Jews returned to Amsterdam from the concentration camps or hiding places. The rest were murdered by the Nazi regime. Never forget.

We knew we would be up unreasonably early on Friday, so we planned to get out and take advantage of the sleeping city on an early morning canal cruise.

Our day started with the hotel’s excellent breakfast buffet. What a spread! I’ve never seen anything like it.

After a quick breakfast we were off to our early morning canal cruise on Captain Dave’s Royal Jonckvrouw. We chose the cruise specifically because it departed at 8:00 and was on a small boat/in a small group. It was perfect for us…relaxing and quiet. We enjoyed sitting outside and being one of a very few boats on the canals.

I’m going to deviate a bit from my normal chronological blog posts today, and skip to lunch and dinner before I fill in the hours in between.

We had lunch at a delightful little cafe in the Jewish Cultural District. It was an adventure because we really weren’t sure what we were getting! I thought my flatbread was close to what I thought I would be served, but Jim’s Louman Meatball with Amsterdam Pickles (they’re actually onions) was a surprise!

Dinner on Friday was a delight! We ate at Restaurant D’Vjiff Vlieghen, or The Five Flies. Thankfully we didn’t see any flies during our meal! The restaurant is the oldest in Amsterdam, and is located in a series of canal houses that date back to the early 1600s. (The street has been filled in, but it was once a canal.)

Walking through the door to the restaurant is taking a step back in time to an era of low ceilings and exposed beams. The building was fascinating and we thought the food and service was excellent.

After many miles, smiles, thoughts, and delicacies we were happy to go back to our hotel and fall into bed!

The ride into Central Amsterdam from Schiphol was relatively fast, and that was a good thing. At that point we were exhausted and dirty/sweaty from travel and two hours in the immigration line. We were hopeful that a room would be available early and we could check-in and catch a quick nap before our 3:00 walking tour.

It wasn’t meant to be. In fact, we heard words one never wants to hear at the end of an overnight flight, “Your room type is oversold.”

Ugh! I couldn’t even think straight to tell the hotel what we wanted to do. We had booked a Junior Suite because it had a separate “living room” and I thought that would be perfect for extra luggage and also a place to sit when one of us (that would be me🙄) couldn’t sleep. We went to lunch in the hotel cafe and took time to discuss our options.

Ultimately we decided a room with extra space was more important to us than an upgrade to a room with a terrace, so that’s what we settled on. The hotel added the amenities we would have gotten with the Junior Suite, and really bent over backwards to make up for the overbooking. Despite the mistake, we loved the hotel and thought the hotel staff was terrific.

We found out our room wouldn’t be ready until later so we retrieved our carry-ons and used the public restrooms to change clothes and freshen up before our afternoon walking tour Amsterdam in World War II.

Our guide was great and we walked all over town, but honestly at that point all I really wanted to do was put my pajamas on and relax. I thought the tour was a good prequel for our plans to visit the Resistance and Holocaust Museums on Friday, but ultimately we ended up cutting our time short so we could go back to the hotel and have some down time.

Back at the hotel we finally got in our room🎉 and ventured out one more time to the local grocery store for a dinner of cheese, meat, crackers, and cold vegetables. We saw some other interesting stores along the way!