Amsterdam #7

 June 25th. Warm+cloudless blue sky = Hot

Today my nephew took us, at my request, back to the Rijksmuseum.   I had missed seeing the Library and the Dolls Houses, both apparently worthy of a visit.   As it was just one week since I had visited on my Trafalgar Tour it did feel like meeting an old friend and i noted several spots I’d seen previously as we climbed up to the level where the Dolls Houses were.

There were three intricately furnished and detailed dolls houses but I doubting either of them were really made for playthings.   Two were from the 17th century and everything was made exactly to scale.   The third was from the 18th century and it was the exterior on display - a replica of the houses of the time.  If I understood correctly the wealthy  Petronella Oortman “collected” these and I wonder what sort of wealth would be needed nowadays to have this hobby!

Next we went to see the Library.   Very rarely nowadays does one see Silence Please on the door of a library.  In New  Zealand they are more likely to be community hubs!   But here it was absolute silence in this amazing library designed by a Dutchman named Cuypers it has certainly achieved his stated aim of “a space with a sense of grandeur that appears larger than it is”.   This library is used as a research facility and tucked away in a discreet corner at the base is a photocopier!  

Then I wanted to show my nephew my ‘small Van Gogh’ and as we went there, the triumph of the day occurred.  Just one week prior I had seen the jewel of this museum! Rembrandt’s The Night Watch hanging on a wall in the main 17th century collection area.   Then, the wall at the end of the room was blocked off and painted in a sign which said that behind the wall a glass room was being prepared where conservators would begin the lengthy project of restoring and conserving this masterpiece.   And….today when we went the glass room was complete, the painted wall gone, The Night Watch safely moved and I was able to see the beginnings of this project.   The information lady standing by seemed astounded at my enthusiasm and at the fact that I, a tourist, had come a week later to see the painting again!   She told me that a team of 20 specialists will confer on each step of the conservation and will use the 12,500 extremely high resolution photographs to assist them.

Next we walked through the beautiful gardens of the museum and made our way to the Jewish Quarter.  Here we saw the National Holocaust Monument.  Constructed of 102,000 alphabetically ordered red bricks inscribed with the name, birth year and age at death of the Jewish Victims in The Netherlands who were arrested, deported and killed by the Nazis at Auschwitz or Sobinor Death Camps.   There are also 220 Roma and Sinti people, treated the same way by the Nazis commemorated here.   

The red bricks form a labyrinth which viewed from above spells out the לזכר  Hebrew word for In Memoriam.   The highly polished stainless steel mirrors the surroundings and the sky.   It is  a truly memorable monument to this sad history.

Further along the neighbouring canal small plaques are inset with the names of those Jewish people who were arrested and deported from the canal houses opposite.   I only photographed one such pair from House number 68 but this silent reminder stretched for some distance.

By this stage the temperature had risen to the high 20s and the energy  had sunk to basement levels so we made our way home for some rest and a drink of iced water.