Confronting Issues and Art in the Netherlands

Among the highlights of our visit to Amsterdam was a lovely Friday night dinner with a speaker, and a visit to the building where Anne Frank and others were hiding out during the Nazi occupation.  Because both of these share a theme about being a minority, we will write about them here.

 
Sam writes: 

Daniel Cil Brecher

We had an amazing speaker talk to us Friday evening about the relationship between Jews and Muslims in Amsterdam.  Born in Israel and raised in Germany, Danny Cil Brecher is a historian who now works for Germany’s National Public Radio covering mostly Jewish-related subjects.  His research is based on his interviews of his target/interest demographic.  He has lived in Amsterdam for decades and is a member of the liberal (equivalent to Reform) Jewish synagogue in Amsterdam, which we did not see.

Danny said that a turning point for Muslims in the Netherlands was the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S.  This triggered a stream of anti-Muslim sentiment. Jews had been targeted for hatred because of the existence of the state of Israel.  Danny highlighted their common denominator: they are both minority communities that want to define themselves as different.  He said that the desire to"...defin[e] yourself [is a key aspect that] creates a lot of problems for both groups, but also creates a sense of identity. They don't talk to each other because they internalize these boundaries that come along with their ideologies."

The liberal synagogue in Amsterdam is one of the few places to have organized dialogue and interaction between these two groups. This opportunity was initiated ten years ago when the synagogue experienced hostility from the Muslim kids in the school next to them.  Instead of building higher walls, the liberal synagogue created opportunities for the kids to play together.  Since then, 15,000 kids have gone through the programs they developed and this significantly reduced the tension and prejudice between the two populations. 

Danny also described the challenge of racism in Netherlands by describing their version of Santa Claus, who does not have reindeer or elves, but a black helper (read: slave), Black Piet, who looks like little Black Sambo.  The Dutch make displays of Santa and his helper, and they put on black face!  To many it is a beloved Dutch legend, and to other it is racist -- see the photo on the right of protesters.

Joseph writes about the issues of race and migration that he researched, along with his question to Danny:

While focusing primarily on relations between Jewish and Muslim minorities in the Netherlands, Daniel's description of the anti-immigrant policies of current right-wing parties in Europe reminded me of a time immediately after the fall of the Iron Curtain. When former Eastern Bloc countries such as Poland joined the European Union in the late 1990s, many migrant workers from these countries moved west to take up low-wage jobs. I asked if there was a possible connection between current anti-migrant feeling in these western EU countries and what resulted from the employment of, for instance, Polish migrant workers.

Daniel responded by saying no: Poles were white and practicing Christians, which is not necessarily the case for migrants and refugees from Syria or other non-European continents. This racism and sectarianism may come, he speculated, from the inability of the Dutch to truly confront their colonial past. Whereas the British have more notably embraced multiculturalism and welcomed migrants from Commonwealth nations, the Dutch have not.  Dutch who come from former Dutch colonies such as Suriname or Indonesia have a much more challenging experience. They may never feel or be accepted as truly Dutch.

To prove his point that race is the issue, Danny said that there was no backlash to the influx of Polish migrant workers in the 1990s. Instead, it is more about a visible or projected difference, a tribalism and inability to answer the question "What does it mean to be Dutch?" that is more likely behind the anti-migrant sentiment sweeping through too much of Europe today.

It's both a new and fascinating perspective and development outside of the more general news on both Jewish and Muslim issues that we hear about and face in the United States -- an informative and intriguing time was had by all. Thank you again to Danny for meeting with us!

...............................
On Saturday morning we visited the Anne Frank Museum.  Matthew writes:

A couple of days ago we all went to the Anne Frank museum . This was another eye opening experience because generally one does not think of or perhaps remember that here in Holland, persecution of the Jews was widespread and awful much like in Poland, France, Hungary, etc. Though the atrocities and the violence were not as bad here, thousands of Jews from Holland were killed during the war. Over 100,000 Jewish people lived here, and by the end of the war, less than a few thousand were alive. Among those who perished were Anne Frank and the rest of her family except for her father Otto.

After the rise of Hitler, her family moved to Holland because it was safer, but in 1942 they had to go into hiding. They were joined by others who worked in Otto Frank’s business, and so eight people lived in the attic in the building’s annex.  They were discovered by an act of betrayal by –no one knows who – in 1944.  They were all put in different camps except for Anne’s mother and father, who were both in Auschwitz. Only Otto survived.  What's even more awful about Otto's experience was that he was a German veteran of World War I: even though he fought for Germany, his brave service to his country meant nothing to the Nazis. Otto learned the fate of his family after the war. Anne perished in Bergen Belsen from typhoid fever. After learning his whole family died in the camps, it was Otto who had released Anne’s diary. He probably had no idea that it would become as famous as it is today and that so many people would read it in schools across the world. Learning of Anne’s fate when I was younger was heartbreaking. Now that I'm older and understand it more it's still difficult to still comprehend what the Franks and so many millions of people went through, just in the effort to survive.

Carine writes:

While visiting Anne Frank’s house a lot of emotions went through my mind, and I'm sure it was the same for everyone else: It was very moving and also hard to believe that she was in the exact house we were walking in. It seems impossible to live in fear for two years and be trapped in your own home. As we walked through the house the pictures on the wall stuck out the most.

These were pictures her father gave her for decorating her room, some of them photos of celebrities.  These were people who inspired her. She was a very brave girl and looking at her diary gave us all chills. It's crazy to think that such a young girl lost her life after batting so much and almost making it to the end.

.....................................
On Saturday afternoon we visited the Rijksmuseum, the national museum of Netherlands. It was pretty awesome!  The art lovers among us spent their free time to visit other museums, too: the van Gogh Museum, the Rembrandt House, and Rebecca went to the Vermeer Museum.  She writes:

Johannes Vermeer was a Dutch artist born in Delft on October 31, 1632 and buried in Delft on December 16, 1675. He was a prominent painter during the artistic Northern Baroque Golden age and painted large-scale biblical, mythological, daily life, and interior setting scenes. He was known for his painting Girl with Pearl Earring and only has 36 known paintings today.


He trained in Italy, France, and Flanders. He was exposed to earlier Baroque artists such as Caravaggio and Rembrandt who influenced his painting style. Some common themes he painted consisted of women reading or writing letters, playing musical instruments, or adorning themselves with jewelry. His aim was to express a sense of inner harmony within everyday life, primarily within the confines of a private chamber. He also utilized the laws of perspective and the placement of objects such as chairs, tables, walls, maps, windows, etc. to create a sense of nature's underlying order. The objects are carefully chosen as well as their position, proportion, color, and texture-- all of it contributed to the big idea, or the concetto, the Italian term for an overall concept.

Vermeer's work was very calming to look at and his signature color was yellow and blue, which can be seen in almost all his work. One of my favorite pieces is Woman Holding a Balance created in 1664. The viewer is immersed in the 17th-century Protestant Dutch women's traditions and culture. For example, the woman in the painting is holding a balance to know the gender of her unborn child. Behind her there is also a painting of the Last Judgement as well.

However, The Art of Painting is my favorite painting by Vermeer. He is depicting two muses, La Pittura and Clio, the muse of art and history. La Pittura is painting Clio, and is thus making history. In The Art of Painting, he is painting a painting within a painting, painting a sculpture, and painting a map. This not only shows his skills in painting but also his preference in the arts. Clio in the painting is believed to be a depiction of his daughter as well.


The art of painting is not being able to trump all other medias available at the time, but by being able to portray precious memories that cannot be relived any other way, not in sculpture or maps. Vermeer is preserving this exact memory of his daughter, and only painting can do that at the time.

Like most artists, he did not receive proper recognition and appreciation for his work and skills until after his death. He died almost penniless and from an unknown illness at the age of 43. Even when walking around Amsterdam, I noticed that Rembrandt is highly recognized and has several squares, bars, and hotels named after him, while Vermeer is not given as much attention or recognition despite his phenomenal paintings.