Day 56

Mom got up the courage to take us into Amsterdam all by herself today! It was a big day of walking and looking in many little stores and stopping at museums. The first place we headed to was the Anne Frank museum, because the line gets extremely long! So we got there early and still there was a long line but not as bad as it was the day before. We wanted to get in the day before, because Dad was with us and the next day he had to work, but the lines were too long. Mom, Jack, Bria, Landon, and I still had to wait in a long line. While waiting, I bought a sticker for the Netherlands.

If any of you reading don’t know the history of the Franks’s family, here is a little just to let you have a feel for what I am saying.

The Frank’s were Jew’s and lived at that time Adolf Hitler was ruling. He hated the Jew’s and he would either kill them or put them in concentration camps where he made them work hard. The people running the camp would not feed them enough food for all the work they were doing, so people would die. The concentration camps were such horrible places to live. Mom went to visit Dachau concentration camp and she was astounded of how bad the bunk houses and bath houses were for living. There were not only Jews at the camps but also Gypsies. Gypsies were the first people put in the concentration camps.

Because the Frank’s were Jews, they were in hiding. They had built a hidden house in a old factory building hoping that they would not be found. The house was concealed by a bookcase door. The attic that they had made into a house was wonderfully made. All the windows had black cloth over them so that people could not look in. They could not flush the toilet until night, when there were no people around that could hear it and then investigate. The family had to be quiet all day long. Can you imagine being very quiet all day hoping that no-one would hear or find you? I can’t, it would be so hard. Well that is what they had to do day and night. Also, at night, they would sneak down to the factory below and get food that was left there for them by a man that said he would keep it a secret. Sometimes they had to go without food because there would be people around and they could not take the chance of being caught.

One day, when Anne was 15, the man who left food for the Frank’s told Hitler’s army where they were hiding. The Frank’s were found and taken to the concentration camp. Early in the stay at the camp, Otto (Anne’s father), was freed, but the rest of his family had to stay. They all died a couple years later, Anne was the last one to die at age 17.

After her father was set free, he went back to the their house. He found Anne’s diary that she had kept all the years they lived in hiding and then published it as a book. Bria has read the book many times and has said it is interesting to hear what it was like back then.

The lines of people continued to move slow even after we entered the museum because people wanted to read every sign. After walking through the museum, we went through the hidden bookcase door to enter the Frank’s house. The house was 4 small rooms if you count the bathroom.

After we left the Anne Frank house, we had a little lunch of mini pancakes with lots of whipped cream and Nutella except for Mom who had a large pancake. We then headed to the cheese museum. When we walked in the door, cheese was everywhere! Beside each kind of cheese, there was a little container with pieces of cheese to taste. We tasted every kind of cheese they had available to taste. 3 cheeses that really caught my eye were the blue, green, and red pesto cheeses. It tasted really good, but cost a pretty penny.

Down in the basement of the museum, they had many things for making cheese and a fancy cheese slicer all covered in jewels that sparkled in the lights. At one end of the room there was a camera to take a picture of you and/or your family. We took a picture and sent it to Dad. (The picture is the header of this post.)

As we were walking around town, we found an ice-cream place and of course we had to get some. :) We also went into a shop that sold only china. When we walked in, the man who was running the shop look nervously at us. Mom thinks he was really nerves that one of us children would brake something. We did not spend much time in there. We then headed back to the house in time to get dinner on and spend the evening with Dad.

Ps: This is Saturday's (November 5th) post not todays.