A Sad Story in Amsterdam

We've all heard of The Diary of Anne Frank. I must admit, I have not read the book, though I have wanted to for awhile. Maybe I'll put it on my reading list. But the other day I was watching Samantha Brown: Passport to Europe on the Travel Channel, and she visited Amsterdam. During the show, she visited the room where Anne Frank hid from the Nazis for two years. She looked at the walls, covered in pictures and cut-outs of famous Hollywood celebrities and Princess Elizabeth of Windsor-- the current Elizabeth II. During the war, the two girls were about the same age; you can see how Anne might have looked to Elizabeth (who stayed in London during the German Blitz, despite the danger) as a courageous sign of hope. I started to cry. Maybe I'm just hormonal right now or something, but even without having read the book, it just felt so incredibly sad. Especially when it was revealed that Anne had always wanted to be a writer, and hoped that her words would bring happiness to the world.

But I also felt sad because of a paper I wrote last year considering converso identity. During the late 16th and early 17th century Jews and conversos (Jews who had converted to Christianity, whether sincerely or for political purposes) were driven from the Iberian Peninsula during-- what else?-- the Spanish Inquisition, and later, less mentioned, the Portuguese Inquisition. They didn't have much of a choice; all those who openly identified as Jews were expelled from the kingdom, and all those who identified as conversos ran the risk of being burned for heresy. (Jews could not technically be tried by the Inquisition because they were not heretics, having never professed to believe in Jesus Christ and having never been baptised; heresy, as defined by the Inquisition, can only be committed by baptised Christians. Conversos, having been baptised, were the ones in the most danger.) Many conversos, of course were sincere in their practice of Christianity. Many others practiced a hybrid version of Judaism and Christianity. This was the most dangerous of all, by Inquisition standards. Some practiced this hybrid religion without really knowing why-- they lit candles on Friday and abstained from pork without a real understanding of what they were doing, just doing it because it was tradition. Even many Jews in Spain had little understanding of their religion by the 17th century, but of course, that didn't really matter to the Inquistion.

So they fled. Most of them fled straight to Amsterdam. Why? Because in the 17th century, Amsterdam was a place of tolerance. It also had a familiar Spanish influence, being in the Netherlands. Amsterdam had a large Jewish community, made up of not only the Marrano Jews of 'the Nation' (a term used to describe the diasporic community created by the Inquisition), but also of Sephardic Jews (of Spanish and Portuguse descent, also, but who had relocated from the Iberian peninsula prior to the Inquisition and never undergone the converso experience; also from other Mediterranean regions) and Ashkenazi Jews. The laws of Amsterdam allowed them to practice their religion in relative peace, and many conversos, who had perhaps been willing to actually convert to Christianity, found in their new home a connection to their Jewish faith. While not a 'return' to the religion for many individuals, since many of them had actually grown up as Christians or pseudo-Christian-Jews for several generations past, it constituted a change to their old practices, towards a more pure form of Judiasm (aided by the Sephardim). Though not all of them accepted every tenet of Rabbinic Judaism, they certainly began to build towards a greater religious understanding. Many conversos soon became ex-conversos.

In Amsterdam, they created a religious community, an intellectual community, and a community of service. They had dowry institutions for poor members of 'the Nation,' they developed literary academies, and they began to practice Judaism without hiding in the back room. In the paper, I explored the stories of individual members of 'the Nation,' such as Maria Nunes, who, according to legend, become the object of affection to a young English duke who paraded her through London, introduced her to Queen Elizabeth I, and asked for her hand in marriage. She, however, refused him-- choosing to live openly as a Jew in Amsterdam, than as a Christian in London. There was Daniel Levi de Barrios, a Portuguese-Jewish poet and author living in Amsterdam, who adhered to both Christian and Jewish principles depending on whether he lived in Spain or the Netherlands, but who revered the Jewish community in Amsterdam and was considered a member of 'the Nation' by other members of 'the Nation.'

And, two centuries later, Amsterdam was the home of Anne Frank. Samantha Brown quoted that only 1 in 16 Jews living in Amsterdam survived the Holocaust. In this case, my knowledge of history made that fact even sadder than it already is; such a beautiful, intelligent, established, and thriving community diminished. The descendants of Maria Nunes and Daniel Levi de Barrios, the children of the ancient Sephardim of the Mediterranean, and the Ashkenazim of central and eastern Europe... all gone. Their safe haven, once again, become a place of persecution and death.

Sometimes, history hurts. Still, no matter how much it hurts us to remember, it's best not to forget.

(Anne Frank)

(If you want info on the subject not from Wikipedia, I have an academic bibliography/paper on 16th and 17th century converso identity which I can send to you by e-mail. Just leave a comment)