There has been an unseen and unplanned undercurrent during our travels to Paris, Malaga and now Amsterdam. There have been moments.  And some can’t be erased. 

While we have been eating, museum-going and walking around these beautiful cities filled with amazing history and culture, there have also been some cracks in the cobblestones.  Metaphorical ones.

These European cities, so proud of displaying their centuries of  history, are also curators of my history. Our ancestors’ blood and pain runs through it.

In Paris, there are public reminders of the holocaust and France’s part in the destruction and deportation of the Jewish community to concentration camps. 

In Malaga, there are the ghosts of vibrant Jewish communities destroyed during the Spanish Inquisition and their expulsion in the late 1400’s.

 Our travels have also been at a particularly potent moment of the Jewish calendar. The High Holy Days and October 7,  the one year anniversary of the massacre of 1200 Israeli civilians and the brutal capture of over 250 more.

But we were in Amsterdam on vacation, blithely wandering the central city. We were headed to the Stedelijk Museum of Art. There, we saw many wonderful pieces and also read the stories behind many.  How one Matisse was stolen from a Jewish family during WWll and how curators tracked down their provenance and made restitution.  There were also paintings by many overlooked women artists of the early 20th century with curators and collectors finally giving them their due.

Walking home, we remarked on how tolerant Amsterdam is.  A melting pot of people peacefully living their lives. We tried to take a tram back but for some reason the trains were delayed.  We hoofed it home to our hotel which we discovered today is coincidentally in the old Jewish district.

Heading back out to dinner last night, we tried to get a ride and then our taxi driver struggled to get around closed streets.  We asked what was going on. He said  “some demonstration.”

He finally dropped us off blocks from our destination, where we enjoyed a delicious, upscale Indian dinner at Ashoka.

Afterward, we decided to walk back to the Central Station to catch a tram home, thinking all the earlier traffic snarls would be done by 8:30 at night.  

But as we approached,  we heard the shouts. And then we saw the red, white and green flags of the protesters.  We approached the tram line but it appeared none of them were on time and some were actually halted.

We waited a few minutes at the tram stop getting more and more anxious at the chants and vitriol so close by. There were police around but still a small scuffle broke out.  I said, we gotta get out of here.  Let’s just walk the long way home again.  

I was shaken. This was a nothing moment compared to what our ancestors experienced.  It was just a straggling group of haters and, still, we felt alone and vulnerable.  I read this morning that there had been a big protest at 6 pm at the Central Station that had torpedoed traffic. There were arrests.

That’s my October 7 story.  Our history is never too far from the surface. Our blood runs deep in these European cobblestones.  We can never forget…even on vacation. They (whoever “they” are in time) won’t let us. 

https://www.dutchnews.nl/2024/10/riot-police-break-up-pro-palestine-demo-in-central-amsterdam/