The Anne Frank House And Another Godwink (Day 13, Part 3 of 3)

I knew we wanted to visit the Anne Frank house while we were in Amsterdam.   Tickets must be purchased online and they become available 6 weeks in advance.  I purchased our tickets and added Monday, June 1 at 5:45 p.m. to our itinerary.  We walked a little ways from the zoo, hopped on a tram, then walked some more until we arrived at the Anne Frank house.

 

We had a bit of a wait until our time was called.  The young lady who was going to scan our tickets saw a picture of Bo and Olive on my phone.  "Are they your grandchildren?"  "My sister's grandchildren."  "Oh, my great aunt is one of my favorite people!"  Then she scanned our tickets and said, "These were for yesterday."  My heart sunk.  "Let me see if we can get you in."  A quick call to her associate inside and we were cleared to go in.

 

Godwinks continue:  if I had put the correct day in our itinerary, we would have been at the Anne Frank House on Sunday evening instead of going out to dinner near our hotel.  We would have never found my bike box.  My mistake was used to our benefit.

 

We entered the lobby of the house and were given headsets for the audio tour.  No pictures or video are allowed to be taken while in the house.   If you don't know the story of Anne and her family, please go here and read:  Who Was Anne Frank?  

 

When we got home from our trip, I re-read Anne's diary.  I know I read it years ago, but after seeing the house and hearing more of the stories, I viewed her diary through a different lens.  We followed the tour, listening and looking in each room.  It's not a large house, just lots of levels with narrow stairways.

 

I started to a write a few key points, but then this just turned into a history lesson.  There is a complete timeline here.  You may be tempted to skip this, please don't.  These were real people who lived in a horrible time.

 

Anne and her sister, Margot were born in Germany to Jewish parents Otto and Edith.  Margot was born in 1926 and Anne in 1929.  When Hitler came into power in 1933 their father knew they could not stay there.  Their family relocated to Amsterdam.  In 1940 Germany invaded the Netherlands.  After just five days of fighting, the Netherlands surrendered and the occupation began.  

 

The Nazis kept introducing new anti-Jewish measures. Jews were more and more restricted in their everyday lives, they had to obey the Nazi rules and could not be in contact with other, non-Jewish Dutch people. They were effectively excluded from society.  Anne and Margot were forced to leave their school and friends to attend a Jewish only school.

 

Anne received a diary when she turned 13 on June 12, 1942. On July 6, 1942, the family went in to hiding. They were joined on July 13th by the Van Pels family (Hermann, Auguste, and their son, Peter) and on November 16th Fritz Pfeffer joined them. Of the eight people who lived in the Secret Annex, only Otto Frank survived. 

 

The house was originally Otto Frank's business, the layout was:

 

The Front House (Business & Offices)
Ground Floor: The warehouse, goods dispatch entrance, and spice mills.
First & Second Floors: Originally Otto Frank’s business offices and storerooms.
 

The Secret Annex (The Hideout)
First Floor of the Annex: The second floor of the total building, containing the Franks' bedroom and the bathroom.
Second Floor of the Annex: The third floor of the total building, featuring the Van Pels' bedroom (which served as the shared kitchen) and Peter van Pels' room.
The Attic: Used for storage and as a retreat during the day.
The Loft: A small top-level space where Anne went to look out at the chestnut tree. 

 

In the first two years of the war, Germany won almost everywhere. By late 1942, the tide was turning, and the Allies forced Germany back.  June 6, 1944, while they were still in hiding D-Day happened. 

 

On August 4, 1944 the Secret Annex was discovered and they were all arrested and put in prison. No one knows how they were discovered or who might have tipped the police off.  On September 3rd they were taken to Auschwitz.  On November 1st, Anne, Margot and Mrs. Van Pels were taken to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.  January 27, 1945 Auschwitz was liberated and Otto Frank was set free.

 

In February 1945, Anne and Margot both died in Bergen-Belsen.  On May 5, 1945, Germany surrendered and the Netherlands was liberated.  On June 3rd, Otto returned to Amsterdam.  In July he met with two sisters who had also been in Begren-Belsen.  They told him about the miserable last months of his daughters and how they had died of typhus.

 

There were several people who helped those in the Secret Annex during their time of hiding.  One of them was Miep Gies. She had kept Anne’s diaries for her. Now that Anne was not coming back, she handed the diaries to Otto.   It took some time before Otto finally read Anne's diary, but once he started reading, he was gripped by her writing. ‘I had no idea of the depths of her thoughts and feelings.’

 

Anne wrote in her diary that when the war was over she wanted to become a famous author.  After Otto read it, he decided to honor that dream.  Anne's wish came true on June 25, 1947 when her book was published: Het Achterhuis. Dagboekbrieven (The Secret Annex. Diary letters from 14 June 1942 - 1 August 1944). 3,000 copies were printed for the first edition.

Anne Frank had written: ‘Just imagine how interesting it would be if I were to publish a romance of the "Secret Annexe," the title alone would be enough to make people think it was a detective story.’ 

The book was well-received in the Netherlands, and the first Dutch edition soon sold out. In December 1947, after only six months, the second edition was published.  It has now been translated to more than 75 languages and sold 30-35 million copies.

The diary became so famous that people from all over the world wanted to visit the Secret Annex.  In 1960 the house was turned in to a museum.  Over 1.2 million people now visit each year.

 

As I mentioned, I re-read Anne's diary when we got home.  As I read, I thought about her father and how he must have felt.  She was a teenager, with all the drama and angst, she had disagreements with her parents, but she also had hopes and dreams.  She wrote about the excitement of D-Day.  They were sure liberation was just around the corner.  Her last entry was August 1, 1944, just three days before they were discovered.  They had no idea and her diary doesn't even hint that this would be her last entry.

 

We left the house feeling so much I don't even know how to describe it.  We did eventually find hamburgers for dinner and one last waffle with ice cream before heading back to the Hampton Inn to pack.  Our trip was coming to an end!

 

Antwerp to Tholen ~ Canadian World War II Cemetery (Day 9, Part 2 of 2)

I have to admit that my knowledge of Dutch World War II history is limited.  Of course I knew of Anne Frank and Corrie ten Boom, but I didn't know what battles were fought in the Netherlands.  I still don't know as much as I'd like, but our stop at the Canadian World War II Cemetery sparked my curiosity.

 

As I walked the rows I noticed that most of the dates were identical ~ October 13, 1944.  Four months after D Day, fighting was still happening.  Most of the soldiers buried at Bergen-op-Zoom Canadian War Cemetery lost their lives in the fighting north of Antwerp during the Battle of the Scheldt.  The Battle of the Scheldt was one of the largest and most severe military operations on Dutch soil during the Second World War; a series of military operations that took place in the autumn of 1944 in the north of Belgium, the province of Zeeland and in West-Brabant.

 

From Wikipedia:

Black Friday is the nickname given by the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) of Canada to the date 13 October 1944. On that day, during World War II's Battle of the Scheldt in the Netherlands, the regiment's only overseas battalion attacked German positions on a raised railway embankment near the village of Hoogerheide after advancing across 1,200 yards of open beet fields. When final casualty totals were tabulated, it was determined the battalion had lost 145 men killed or captured; 56 men were killed, including all four of the commanders of the lettered companies, 95 wounded and 27 men were taken prisoner. One company of 90 men had only four men present and fit for duty the next day. 

In my research for this post I found a website called "Faces to Graves" the purpose is this:

Names, faces, stories
Every name on our cemetery has a face and a story.
Every name stands for a young man who left his home, his family, parents, wife, children, and started an unknown and dangerous journey.
That journey ended here in the Netherlands. 

For our freedom.
We owe it to them to remember their name and their story.
That we will not forget 

I zoomed in on a number of graves and found their names on the website.  Aaron George Bittorf was 30 when he was killed on Black Friday.  He left behind a wife and son.

 

David Farrall was 28.  Randall Holmes and Willard Zaste were both 23.  Keith Bardwell was 20.  Some like Leo Lederhaus and John Bartelotte didn't even have their age listed, just the date they were killed. Our modern Black Friday on the day after Thanksgiving is completely selfish in comparison.  Men from across the ocean joined in battle for the cause of freedom.  

 

I'm posting this on the eve of America's 250th Birthday.  The saying that "Freedom isn't Free" rings the loudest in a somber place like this.

Belfast Taxi Tour (Day 9, Part 3 of 5)

 

As I already mentioned, we added on a taxi tour of Belfast.  I believe about half the people on our bus chose to do this, while the rest spent a couple of hours roaming around Belfast.  This ended up being about six taxis with six passengers in each taxi.  These taxis were driven by both Protestants and Catholics and they took us to both sides of the Belfast "Peace Lines" or "Peace Walls."  This is our taxi driver, Jim, a Protestant.  He gave us the history lesson for the first half of the tour.

 

Here are some definitions that I think might be helpful:

 

Loyalists or unionists were those who were loyal to the United Kingdom, predominantly Protestant,  and wanted Northern Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom.  The main participants in the Troubles were loyalist paramilitaries such as the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defense Association (UDA); British state security forces such as the British Army and RUC; and political activists. Loyalists are typically pro-Israel.

 

Nationalists or republicans were those who were mostly Irish Catholics and wanted Northern Ireland to leave the United Kingdom and join a united Ireland.  The main participants in the Troubles were republican paramilitaries such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA).   Nationalists are typically pro-Hamas.  I remember hearing about violence and the IRA, but the more I read, the more I understood that violence occurred from both sides.

 

Our first stop was the Shankill Road Mural.  During the Troubles, Shankill Road was a center of loyalist activity. The modern Ulster Volunteer Force had its beginnings on the Shankill and its first attack occurred on the road on May 7, 1966 when a group of UVF men led by Gusty Spence petrol bombed a Catholic-owned pub. Fire also engulfed the house next door, killing seventy-seven-year-old Protestant widow, Matilda Gould, who lived there

 

This is the Women's Quilt, created by the Lower Shankill Women's Group. 

 

The artwork replaced these two pieces - a contentious paramilitary mural and a depiction of the burning of Protestant homes at the beginning of the Troubles.

This is a new memorial, dedicated in 2021 on the 50th anniversary of the Balmoral Furniture Company bombing.  Four people, including two infants, were killed in the blast that went off without warning on the Shankill Road on December 11, 1971.  It is widely believed that the bombing was carried out by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in retaliation for the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) bombing of McGurk's Bar a week earlier, which killed 15 Catholic civilians.

 

Our taxi driver, Jim, had an extensive list of books and films about The Troubles.  He said at one point, "An acceptable level of violence is not peace."  This phrase is from a December 15, 1971 news conference.  British Home Secretary Reginald Maudling commented on the escalation of violence as the Northern Ireland conflict was beginning. Maudling said, "I don't think one can speak of defeating the IRA (Provisional Irish Republican Army), of eliminating them completely, but it is the design of the security forces to reduce their level of violence to something like an acceptable level."

 

 

 

At the top of this list you will see "The Shankill Butchers."  This was a Loyalist gang that was active from 1975 to 1982.  The gang was notorious for kidnapping, torturing and murdering random or suspected Catholic civilians; each was beaten ferociously and had their throat hacked with a butcher's knife. Some were also tortured and attacked with a hatchet. The gang also killed six Ulster Protestants over personal disputes, and two other Protestants mistaken for Catholics.

Our next stop was one of the peace walls on Cupar Way.  Due to the violence of August 1969, the British Army built a Peace Wall along Cupar Way to separate the Shankill and Falls roads, thus keeping the two communities apart. More than 50 years later, the wall is still in place.

 

Although temporary peace walls were built in Belfast in the 1920s and 1930s, the first peace lines of "the Troubles" era were built in 1969, following the outbreak of civil unrest and the 1969 Northern Ireland riots. They were initially built as temporary structures, but due to their effective nature they have become wider, longer, more numerous and more permanent.

 

The wall at Cupar Way, between the Falls and Shankill, stands 45-feet tall, three times higher than the Berlin Wall, and in place for twice as long.  We were encouraged to sign the wall:

We got back in our taxis and it was time to see the other side.

The peace lines range in length from a few hundred meters (yards) to over 5 kilometers (3 mi). They may be made of iron, brick, steel or a combination of the three and are up to 8 meters (25 feet) high. Some have gates in them (sometimes staffed by police) that allow passage during daylight but are closed at night. 

 

 

It was now time for one of the other taxi driver's to speak.  He is a Catholic and his view point is different.  It seemed like there was one thing that both men had in common - hurt.  Hurt for friends and family members.  Hurt over losses and violence they have seen in their lifetimes.  They were never antagonistic towards each other.

Murals on the Falls Road side:

This was a very sobering portion of our trip.  More than a month later I'm still trying to wrap my mind around these events that occurred in my lifetime.

More London Exploring and Churchill War Rooms (Day 3, Part 1 of 3)

 

We had an entire day in London on Friday and were ready to explore.  First stop, Pimlico Fresh.  This was a nearby restaurant that served a traditional English breakfast that included sausage, bacon, eggs, toast, mushrooms, tomatoes and baked beans!  Not quite the southern breakfast we are use to but it was hearty and filling.  FYI baked beans on toast is actually kind of tasty.  We also had coffee but since we were ready to get on with our day, we headed to Cafe Nero for a couple of flat whites for "take away."

Our plan was to wander for what was left of the morning so I started my Suunto on walk mode.  This was the first part, over 7 miles in about 2 1/2 hours.

Our plan was to walk to the Tower Bridge, cross the Thames and wander back towards the Churchill War Rooms for our 1:30 reservation.  I Spy the London Eye:

And the London sky line:

The Tower Bridge was built between 1886 and 1894.  Please notice the cars driving on the left side!  This would be the case until we got to France on day 15.  Fortunately we did not have to do any driving during that time.

 

 

The bridge is part of the London Inner Ring Road and remains an important traffic route with 40,000 crossings every day. 

 

 

The bridge deck is freely accessible to both vehicles and pedestrians.  The bridge's twin towers, high-level walkways, and Victorian engine rooms form part of the Tower Bridge Exhibition.  We didn't have the time or the tickets to view the Tower Bridge Exhibition... maybe next time.

 

 

From the bridge there are views of the Tower of London (or more officially His Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London) so we walked across the bridge for a closer look.

 

 

Dating back to 1078, it was a grand palace early in its history and served as a royal residence.  Despite its reputation as a place of torture and death, only seven people were executed within the Tower before the World Wars of the 20th century.  Executions were more commonly held on the notorious Tower Hill to the north of the castle, with 112 occurring there over a 400-year period.  It was used as a prison during both World Wars and 12 men were executed for espionage.

 

 

There were several phases of expansion, mainly under kings Richard I, Henry III, and Edward I in the 12th and 13th centuries. The general layout established by the late 13th century remains despite later activity on the site.  There is even a moat.

The Tower of London has played a prominent role in English history. It was besieged several times, and controlling it has been important to controlling the country.  Reading that fact on Wikipedia, I was reminded of Proverbs 18:10, "The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it and is safe."  No matter what enemy is coming at us, we can always find safety in the strong tower of the name of Jesus!  He's always in control.

 

 

All Hallows By the Tower Church - according to the church website and other sources it is "the oldest church in the City of London" and was founded in AD 675. The church survived the Great Fire of London in 1666, but was badly damaged during the Blitz in World War II.

 

 

We had just enough time for a quick walk through part of Leadenhall Market.  Les spent time here when he was in London for business.

We were running out of time as we made our way through the streets of the city heading towards the Churchill War Rooms, but we managed a few more pictures.

 

The Mansion House, completed in 1752, is home to the Lord Mayor of London.

 

This building is called No 1 Poultry.  It has nothing to do with fowl, but is where the eastern ends of Poultry and Queen Victoria Street meet at Mansion House Street.

We made it for our 1:30 reservation at the Churchill War Rooms and didn't take any pictures while we were inside.  It is a crowded space and we just wanted to read all we could.  Construction of the Cabinet War Rooms, located beneath the Treasury building in the Whitehall area of Westminster, began in 1938. They became fully operational on August 27, 1939, a week before Britain declared war on Germany. The War Rooms remained in operation throughout the Second World War.

 

One of the most significant rooms is the Map Room which was in constant use during the war and was manned around the clock.  The other key room was the Cabinet Room, where the Prime Minister and his key advisers would meet with the three Chiefs of Staff- the heads of the army, navy, and air force.  Churchill made four wartime broadcasts from the Cabinet War Rooms.  He had an office/bedroom there and there was also a room for his wife.  Churchill rarely slept underground, preferring to sleep at 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the Prime Minister.

 

Below the level of the Cabinet War Rooms, a further sub-basement nicknamed "the Dock" was provided for staff members to sleep, so that they didn't have to make their way home through heavy air raids at the end of their shifts.  This was not a comfortable place. The ventilation system rattled throughout the night, mice were common, occupants had to stoop due to low ceilings, and there were no flushing toilets, only chemical ones.

 

We entered a room that held a large map.  This pinpointed where London had been bombed after D-Day.  On June 13, 1944, just a week after D-Day, London was hit by the first of many Vergeltungswaffe-Eins (Revenge Weapon 1), or V-1 rockets, nicknamed "doodlebugs" or "buzz bombs" by Londoners. The V-1 was a bomb that required no crew, and was fired from launch sites initially in northern France. They could not target specific buildings, but could be fired towards London at an average speed of 350 mph.  Over 900 landed in London between June 13 and September 1, 1944 - on average, one every two hours for 81 consecutive days.  Hitler was getting desperate, but the Allies weren't giving up.

 

For what would be first but not the last time during our trip I was reminded of how complicated these war decisions were.  The planning and execution of major victories happened here, without the assistance of so much of the modern technology we live with today.

 

The Big Ben tower survived Nazi bombing, but its roof and dials were damaged in a May 1941 air raid which destroyed the main House of Commons chamber.

 

It was just after 3:00 when we left the War Rooms allowing enough time to get to the London Eye.  That will come in part 2 of our amazing day in London.