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The Distance Between Anne Frank and Rembrandt http://groups.msn.com/lafamillevancleef An Enjoyable Walk Through Amsterdam Jewish Amsterdam is often associated with Anne Frank and as the site of the Secret Annex where her diary was written. However, Amsterdam has a long and varried Jewish history. In the following article, Stanley Mann explores this with us. There are museums and there are museums – where do you begin? Do you go to the famous Rijksmuseum and see the Masters – the one where Rembrandt's works are shown, or do you take a short walk nearby to the museum with the “Diary” – the one written by a young girl who showed the world her heart and told the story. This is the “Anne Frank House.” Perhaps for distraction you might take a boat on the network of 17th century canals of the city of moods and shades and see the light from medieval rooms. Or you could sit on a chair with the peaceful breezes. This is your choice. This is Amsterdam. Amsterdam, the capital of Holland was founded as a fishing village in the thirteenth century. The first Jews who came to the city in any numbers were the Sephardic Jews. They began to settle in Amsterdam around 1590. Many were Converso, Marranos or Christianos Nuevos (New Christians) descendant of Jews who had been forcibly baptized as Catholics in fourteen and fifteen century Spain, and in sixteenth century Portugal. Externally they followed the ways of the Catholic faith, and even bore Spanish and Portugal names, but secretly they maintained their Jewish traditions. They were attracted to Holland by the 1579 declaration which stated that all religions would be tolerated. The policy of Amsterdam was exceptionally liberal. It accorded the Jews the right to live in whatever quarter of the city they wished; they were not forced to wear any distinguishing sign on their dress and the Sabbath was respected by the government. The Portuguese had brought with them great wealth and, in time, the city's material riches increased through them. Many lived in rich classical style houses and entertained lavishly. They amassed great art collections and commissioned paintings from the great painters. In time 17th century Amsterdam styled herself the capital of Europe, ruled the world and it was here that the Jews of Amsterdam called their city “New Jerusalem.” The city developed the largest and most important Jewish community in Europe. The Jewish community transferred themselves from a group of Marranos with little or no knowledge of Judaism, and from a struggling band of German and East European Jews into a flourishing community of international importance, economically and culturally. The Jews were prominent in publishing, sugar refineries, spice trading, tobacco selling. The diamond and jewelry industries were largely in Jewish hands. The printing guilds were an area where the Jews were welcome and where they became very active in Amsterdam. By the end of the seventeenth century Amsterdam had completely supplanted Venice as the center of Hebrew publishing. Scholars came from all over Europe and, in its heyday, Amsterdam furnished almost all Europe with Hebrew books. At the time there were 318 Jewish printers in the city. However, there was an ambiguity. The city was like a house divided. Jews were permitted to study at universities and to receive the academic title of physician or lawyer, but Jewish surgeons were not allowed to perform operations on non-Jews. Jewish lawyers were not allowed to practice law in the higher courts until the emancipation of 1796. In 1654, after the Cossack uprising under Chmielnicki, many persecuted Polish Jews fled to Amsterdam. Many immigrants from Germany, Bohemia, and Lithuania also settled thus upsetting the balance of the Jewish population in Amsterdam with the increase of Ashkenazim over the Sephardim. Basically, the majority of the Ashkenazim were poor and lived in the cramped areas of the Jewish Quarter. It was not until late in the seventeenth and into the eighteenth century that they began to take on stronger roles in the Amsterdam society. Despite its overcrowding and dire poverty, the Quarter had its beauty and was one of the oldest parts of the city. During the week the market place on Jodenbreestraat was streaming with people, but as the Sabbath approached, suddenly the Quarter became like a flower. The strewn streets became clean, the houses and sidewalks appeared newly washed and the old Jewish Quarter acquired a quiet dignity. One was reminded that Rembrandt who lived close by, would walk here to seek subjects for his paintings. During the Nazi occupation, it was called the Juden Viertel and it was the first time in Dutch history that there was an official ghetto. By 1945, the Jewish Quarter was no more. In Amsterdam there were many great Rabbis, Jewish scholars, orators, poets, artists. Menasseh Ben Israel wrote the Piedra Gloriosa which was published in 1655 based on Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream and collaborated his work with his friend Rembrandt who illustrated selected passages. Uri Halevi was a crucial figure in the establishment of Rabbinic practice in Amsterdam. The statesman and Jurist Tobias Micaehl Carel Assers was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1911. The Jonas Daniel Meyer Square, was the center of the Jewish religious life. This was the site of the Ashkenazi complex of four synagogues and the Portuguese synagogue dating back to the second half of the seventeenth century. The Ashkenazi “Great Synagogue” was built in 1671, and was known as the “Grote Shul.” The Portuguese synagogue was consecrated in 1675 by the town architect Elias Bouwman who based it on a wooden model of King Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. It was here that the Rabbis excommunicated Baruch Spinoza and Uriel da Costa. The building survived practically unscathed during the war and is still used as a synagogue. The “Great Synagogue” along with other Jewish buildings were damaged and many of their interiors were used by the local population as fuel for their stoves in that last freezing winter just before the war ended. After the war, many of the Synagogues were not opened and in 1955 were sold to the Amsterdam municipality. With the German occupation in 1940, many Jews went into hiding but most were sent to Westerbork the transit camp. Westerbork had been established originally in October 1939 by the Dutch Government to detain German Jewish refugees who had entered the Netherlands illegally. After the takeover of the camp by the Nazis on July 14, 1942, the trains left the next day for Auschwitz. More than 110,000 Dutch Jews were deported, seventy-five percent of the Jewish population perished in the concentration camps. About 25,000 children were given over to non-Jews. Westerbork was liberated by the allies in mid April 1945. 876 prisoners remained in the camp of whom 367 were Dutch nationals. Anne Frank and her family were on the last train that left for Auschwitz. One cannot leave Amsterdam without visiting the museum on Prisengracht 263, the house where Anne Frank and her family hid, and where she wrote what some say is probably the most famous diary ever written. The Frank family, along with four other Jews, went into hiding in this “Secret Annex” in early 1942 until their capture in August 1944. On June 12, 1942 she made her first entry, in which she wrote, “I hope I shall be able to confide in you completely, as I have never been able to do in anyone before, and I hope that you will be a great support and comfort to me.” She captured in her diary the indomitable spirit despite the hardships of war. The everyday life of growing up, of disappointments, wishes and dreams. In her diary she left behind a record of adolescence, sketching her thoughts and feelings which went beyond the hiding place, feelings that were universal and shared. She described the hiding place. “The right-hand door leads to our “Secret Annex.” No one would believe that so many rooms are hidden behind that plain gray door. “The Secret Annexe” is an ideal hiding place. Although it leans to one side and is damp, you'd never find such a comfortable hiding place anywhere in Amsterdam, no perhaps not even in the whole of Holland. “And how do you know that the human race is worth saving?” an argumentative youngster once asked Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. Said the Justice, “I have read Anne Frank's diary.” On July 1944, in one of her last entries just before the inhabitants of the “Secret Annexe” were found out, Anne Frank wrote, “It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry. Yet I keep them because, in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

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Olaf Van Cleef, by Pourna - of Pondicherry It was in Pondicherry that I met Olaf for the first time. He was accompagnied by six or seven friends, colleagues of work or pleasure,who followed him with obedience.I say obedience because Olaf Van Cleef seemed to me to be the leader of this group to whom he communicated his enthusiasm for India with the generosity which is characteristic of his personality. Olaf knocked at my door,as do many travelling French when they learn that I am french and live in India since more than forty years.The conversation took off as though we had know each other for always.When he returned to my door, I told him: see you soon" as I guessed we would meet again. It is more than fifteen years now that this friendship is going on.The ciment is the love that we share for India. Olaf-like myself- had fallen in the infinite tenderness and strength for this eternel country. We have lived in cities and towns,on the riverside of thr gages, in forests, in the desert and in the mountains, in the palaces and in lodges,always with the same hapiness.We have meet Maharadjahs, and flutistes. the princesses and the inevitable snake charmers, sages andidiots.We have travelled on the back of camel or elephant in boats, in buses, in First class of Air India or limousines with the same joy.And we continue to travel in imagine when life takes us far from this magic country. In paris, we remember the indian sunset, the smiles, the sents, the hub-dubs of the streets and the silence of meditation. In Paris, it is in India that we meet. Not the nostagie romantic of the colonial Pondicherry, but in opposition in the dynamism of the living town in which we see a richness andmultiple then,the least cup of tea is tinged with a spiciness and the peace of meditation we feel the feconde of activity of India. Olaf never told me that he painted. One day, in his house, at the occasion of one of these spicy tea, he openned two big cartoons containing the secrets of his spleeplessness. And then, I found the impressionof the hibiscus flowers, the market showing powders of color, the saris of the women working in the land, the green of the growing rice and the wind in the drying saris in the coconut trees and groves. Today, I say in spite of all joys and sadnesse, the successes of life and its unsuccesses, the love of Olaf for India has never fluctuated and it is in this equilibrium that he takes his love for live. May you feel his dynamism. http://groups.msn.com/OlafVanCleefthebejewelledartofpainting/olafvancleefbypournaofpondicherry.msnw

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