The Same in Every Language
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: We arrived on the island of Cyprus late Wednesday, and are slowly settling in for a much-needed four-week stay. We have a view of the wine-dark sea (if you know, you know) and a pile of sweet, sweet local oranges, and I woke up to the crowing of roosters this morning.
The Same in Every Language
Amsterdam—famously full of tall blonde Dutch people—turns out to be far more diverse and complex than I expected. Lee and I experienced the city in entirely different ways: each day he went for long, quiet walks in a wide range of residential neighborhoods, stopping for coffee in leafy green parks, observing how different demographic groups tend to cluster in different neighborhoods, and navigating around the ubiquitous parked bicycles.
Each day I fought the tourist hordes in the city center, wading through packs of people jammed in front of every Rembrandt and Van Gogh, veering around the tour groups massed on every corner, waving away clouds of pot smoke, and trying not to get run over by bicycles.
I also spent my days stopping to read the stolpersteines that dot Amsterdam’s sidewalks. The word means ‘stumbling stone’ in German; I previously wrote about them here. Each one—and there are so, so many—reminds anyone who bothers to look: never again.
Prior to the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands, Jews had been settling in the small Dutch nation, and assimilating into the culture, for more than four hundred years—longer than the US has been a country. While not always entirely free from discrimination, Dutch Jews generally experienced much greater religious tolerance and safety than Jews in the rest of Europe, avoiding the pogroms and widespread state-sanctioned persecution seen elsewhere. The Netherlands is, after all, famously tolerant—exhibit A: the Pilgrims.
But then came the Holocaust. I’m guessing most of you, once upon a time, read The Diary of Anne Frank. You know where this story ends. You may not realize that a higher proportion of Dutch Jews were murdered by the Nazis than in any other country. Let that sink in—like Anne Frank, many had fled the countries they thought were dangerous: Germany, Poland, Austria. They had gone to a place widely known to be a safe haven. And the Dutch bureaucracy, famously organized and efficient, facilitated their murder.
That was a long time ago: in a couple of weeks, it will be 80 years since the last concentration camps were liberated, and the last prisoners killed in the final hours of the war in Europe. Nowadays, the streets of Amsterdam overflow not only with throngs of tourists, but also with reminders of that harrowing history: museums and memorials, and literal stumbling stones, which most visitors seem not to notice.
I zigged and zagged through the sightseeing crowds, scanning the sidewalks for the glint of another stolpersteine, and eavesdropping on tour guides speaking in French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, English, and a whole United Nations of unfamiliar languages. People listened to the stories, rapt. They munched on frites and stroopwafels. They took pictures of canal houses, of house boats, of tulips and statues and weed shops. I began to think Amsterdam's true diversity lies not only in its varied neighborhoods or complex history but in its ongoing reminders that despite our differences, human experiences—joy and sorrow alike—are universal.
Crossing the street behind a group of women laughing uproariously, I wondered where they were from, because I hadn’t heard the joke. And I realized that laughter, like tears, sounds the same in every language.
Take care,
Lisa
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