I am here in Amsterdam, visiting my only child after many months of being apart. She is completely surprised by my secret visit. All the plotting and planning was well worth the look on her face! #Lovethisman leaves our little airport reunion to catch his onward flight to Estonia, and mother and daughter are alone again.

We revert quickly into familiar patterns. She chides me gently and with exasperation. I become a girl again, giddy and giggly as we explore the city together. Incredibly, we find and purchase tickets for Anne Frank’s house for the same afternoon. The child is now the parent, herding me around on the tram and metro.

#263 Prinsengracht Anne Frank Huis

We have both read Anne Frank’s diary as teenagers and were deeply moved by it. We have saved this visit to make together. We are both deeply affected by other stories we have read about nazi concentration camps and war time heroics by young women. This is a long awaited pilgrimage.

We stand in a queue and have Anne Frank’s face staring down at us. She is smiling, filled with laughter. It aches to know her eventual fate, as we gaze upon the young face filled with so much heart and soul.

As we walk through the house and see it all empty ( Otto Frank never refurnished it, leaving it as it was, emptied by the Gestapo), we are filled with so much sadness. We are all solemn as we watch video clips and interviews and peer into photos of what each room looked like. The wall Anne pasted magazine photos on, by her bed, while she was in hiding, was heartbreaking. She was just a young girl, on the cusp of her womanhood. She loved movie stars and books and wanted to be kissed.

All her diaries are on display. What eloquence. What beautiful, neat script. What thought from one so young. It hurt to see those fine sheets of paper, scrawled with all her dreams and fears, her feelings and thoughts. She never knew what would happen, that her light would be so abruptly snuffed out, with so much more pain and suffering and sorrow.

How do we deal with this? That such horrors can visit any one of us, for no fault of our own?

How do we reconcile in our head that this was an innocent life, among many millions more, that was taken by another people, with no shred of humanity in their psyche?

That one house is filled with so much grief and so much tragedy. But more, it resonates with hope and courage and joy. Anne lived with joy. She made the most of every moment she had, fighting fear and frustration and despair and hunger.
Her end in Auschwitz made her just another number in the final death toll, but it was her life that made all the difference. Her story has inspired generations of people and helped us understand that there is always a choice to be a light when it is darkest.

We leave, reflecting on the broken promise of a life never really lived, but lived in each moment. We think of how fragile life is and how unfinished dreams can happen to anyone.

In the gift shop, I buy a hardcover edition and wish they would stamp the books like Shakespeare and Company in Paris does, making it ever more special.

I wish they had a magnet of her sunny smiling face. So that more people can look at her and see her light despite the terrors she lived through. It would be an inspiration. And a symbol of hope. Especially when the world around us seems to be spinning into chaos.

This day was memorable and special. And Amsterdam speaks to us differently now. To preserve the memory of such horror and sadness is to show respect and make a commitment to never allow this to happen again.