Voormalige Stadstimmertuin 1 en 2

Our apartment faces the Amstel River, and to the left is the intersection of Sarphatistraat. Walking all the way around this block takes us to the metro station. We lived at Amstel 155 for almost three weeks before we decided one Saturday to use a small alley next to our building instead of circling the block. From the Amstel looking down the alley we could see a small playground but just assumed it was some sort of urban park. Because a bike path and sidewalk cut through, we decided to see what we would find.

I don’t speak Dutch, nor do I read it, but I knew enough to recognize the historical significance of what we found that Saturday morning on Voormalige Stadstimmertuin, the alley with the playground.

 In 1848 the Netherlands established the Freedom of Education. In 1920, the Dutch government ruled that both public and private educational foundations should receive equal funding. In 1928 an orthodox Jewish high school was created on the Herengracht. In 1938, it moved to Voormalige Stadstimmertuin. I didn’t know any of that the first time I saw the building, but it was perfectly clear that a school, a Jewish school once used this building. That was at #2; but it was #1 that made me most curious. Above the door of what appears to be some sort of daycare center (thus the little playground) the dates 1941-1943 are displayed along with a Star of David. I knew.

 

The two school buildings (Voormalige Stadstimmertuin 1 en 2) face each other—for good reason. In 1941, the Jewish Lyceum was established by order of the German occupation administration. It was ordered that no longer would Jewish children be allowed to attend class with non-Jewish children, therefore Jewish schools were created. The lyceum’s most famous student was Anne Frank. Its most famous teacher, Jacques Presser would survive the war and become a leading historian and author. In Ashes in the Wind: the Destruction of Dutch Jewry (1965), Presser wrote of his time in the Jewish Lyceum:

A school like any other, some students arriving late, some disobedient children, punishments, absenteeism…At this point the writer hesitates a moment, since absentees at this school were a very rare phenomenon. If there were ‘disturbances’ in the city there would be noticeable gaps in the classrooms; but that wasn’t the only thing. The writer will never forget the slight gesture (it was scarcely ever more than that) with which the class followed his glance (it was scarcely ever more than that) towards an empty place; sometimes it was a small flick of the hand, meaning gone underground; sometimes it was a clenched fist, meaning arrested; pantomime lasting a couple of seconds, performed many times.

I sometimes wonder if such gestures were used the day Anne failed to show up for class. After the war, the high school reopened but was renamed in honor of the 12^th century scholar, Maimonides. In 1973 it moved to a suburb of Amsterdam, Buitenveldert.

Last week as I returned home along Voormalige Stadstimmertuin, I approached the daycare center. I stopped from a distance to watch the six or seven small children chasing one another or spinning themselves into dizzy euphoria on the playground. It occurred to me as it always does when I pass this building that seventy-two years ago the scene would have been very different, no doubt.

The innocent squeals of joy have replaced the silence of paranoia.