318: Confronting the Remnants of Hate on the Path to Remembrance

The Takeaway

In this episode, I trace the mental and physical journey I took recently in the Netherlands to grasp the murder of more than one hundred thousand Dutch Jews during WWII at the hands of the Nazis. I wanted to move beyond the number and get to the human beings.

Physically, the journey took me to several Holocaust-related sites in Amsterdam: the old Jewish Quarter, the Anne Frank House (Annex), the old Dutch Theatre, the Dutch Holocaust Memorial, and of high interest, the sidewalks of Amsterdam. And outside Amsterdam to the Westerbork transit camp.

Part of my mental journey involved moving beyond the human tendency to see Anne Frank as symbolic of all Dutch Jews who were murdered. But the larger mental issue was confronting the remnants of hate I saw and how they drove me toward hate.