Morning Market and the Dutch Resistance

We started the day at a great Saturday market near Mike and Teresa’s apartment—cheese, bread, fish, meat, nuts, pies, wine—everything you could need for a nice meal!

Teresa took us to the Dutch Resistance Museum, where we spent several hours learning about the history of the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands. As the name suggests, the focus of the museum was on the people who worked to undermine the Nazi efforts at deportation of Jews, Romanis and homosexuals and later on, even removal of non-Jewish working-age Dutch people to labor camps. The museum was started by former resistance members and tells not only the history of the resistance to the German occupation of The Netherlands but also about the lives of 100 individuals from the time—some Jewish, some Nazi, some Dutch traitors/Nazi collaborators and many resistance members.

The museum also offers a self-guided audio walking tour to 20+ sites in the area that were significant in that time: the nursery where young children were kept after their parents were sent to work camps (or worse), and where Dutch volunteers smuggled many children out of Amsterdam to safety; the Holocaust Names memorial—dedicated to the over 102,000 Dutch victims of the Holocaust without a grave; even the zoo, where some Jews were hidden, and though food was exceedingly scarce, the zookeeper managed to continue feeding the animals (and some of the refugees).

We soldiered on through the continuous misty rain and chill, because, well, we’re here to experience the city. We came back to the Olsons’ cozy warm apartment (did I mention the 2 flights of STEEP stairs in this old canal house?). In their bright and spacious kitchen we heated up the mini chicken and veggie pies we’d picked up at the morning market for our dinner.Read more