Amsterdam - Amsterdam Bruges and Brussels - page 67

footage of the rounding-up of Amsterdam's Jews by the Nazis.
The ruined theater offers relatively little to see but plenty to think
about. Back on the ground floor, notice the hopeful messages that
visiting school groups attach to the wooden tulips (free, daily
11:00-16:00, Plantage Middenlaan 24, tel. [phone], www
.hollandscheschouwburg.nl).
ss Dutch Resistance Museum (Verzetsmuseum) —his is
an impressive look at how the Dutch resisted their Nazi occupiers
from 1940 to 1945. You'll see propa-
ganda movie clips, study forged ID
cards under a magnifying glass, and
read about ingenious and courageous
efforts—big and small—to hide local
Jews from the Germans and under-
mine the Nazi regime.
The first dozen displays set the
stage, showing peaceful, upright
Dutch people of the 1930s liv-
ing oblivious to the rise of fascism.
Then—bam—it's May of 1940 and
the Germans invade the Netherlands,
pummel Rotterdam, send Queen Wilhelmina into exile, and—in
four short days of fighting—hammer home the message that resis-
tance is futile. The Germans install local Dutch Nazis in power
(the “NSB”), led by Anton Mussert.
Next, in the corner of the exhibition area, push a button
to see photos of the event that first mobilized organized resis-
tance. In February of 1941, Nazis start rounding up Jews from the
neighborhood, killing nine protesters. Amsterdammers respond
by shutting down the trams, schools, and businesses in a mas-
sive two-day strike. (This heroic gesture is honored today with a
statue of a striking dockworker on the square called Jonas Daniel
Meyerplein, where Jews were rounded up.) The next display makes
it clear that this brave strike did little to save 100,000 Jews from
extermination.
Turning the corner into the main room, you'll see numer-
ous exhibits on Nazi rule and the many forms of Dutch
resistance: vandals turning Nazi V-for-Victory posters into W-for-
Wilhelmina, preachers giving pointed sermons, schoolkids tell-
ing “Kraut jokes,” printers distributing underground newspapers
(such as Het Parool , which became a major daily paper), coun-
terfeiters forging documents, and ordinary people hiding radios
under floorboards and Jews inside closets. As the war progresses,
the armed Dutch Resistance becomes bolder and more violent,
killing German occupiers and Dutch collaborators. In September
of 1944, the Allies liberate Antwerp, and the Netherlands starts