Frank Huis

While in Amsterdam, we visited the Anne Frank House. It was an amazing experience!

The museum is so popular and busy that we had to get a reservation and get there an hour before they opened. I took a picture of the line that we didn't have to wait in because we had a group reservation. It stretched around the block!

The Anne Frank House is hard to get a large group reservation for because of its close quarters. They haven't modified any part of the annex apart from guide ropes to keep you on the path. It is also peculiar that you cannot take any pictures while there. This is because it can be an emotional experience for some visitors and they do not want to upset anyone by having everyone taking pictures of everything. They do have approved pictures printed on postcards in the bookshop, and of course, I loved that. I bought a lot of postcards and what I couldn't have pictures of, I keep in my memories.

Being a People to People experience, there was a little extra compared to what the average tourist got to experience. Before entering the museum, we had a lesson on the Frank family and did an activity with the book In Memoriam. This book was written to remember all of the people that lost there lives in the Holocaust. By looking up Anne in the book, I realized just how young Anne was for going through all of the horrors of Auschwitz. she also died soon after her sister, Margot, and only days before the prisoners in Auschwitz were set free.

I already had a small understanding of what awaited people in concentration camps, but after seeing the Annex, I got a true understanding of the lengths people went to to try and keep themselves and their families safe.

In Flanders Fields

We were in Belgium for a very short time, but we got to see a lot. We had a demonstration at a chocolate shop (the best chocolate shop!) and the only remaining true belgian lace shop. These were really interesting, but my favorite place was the In Flanders Fields Museum.

This museum is dedicated to the memory of what happened during the Great War in Flanders Fields. There were a lot of interesting displays and even kiosks that would tell you about a persons life throughout the war. You could scan your ticket and get a specific person's story. I followed Bill Clarke from the United States. He left the U. S. in July 1918 and experienced the deaths of many friends in no-man's land before safely returning home in March 1919.

In the museum, we even got to experience no-man's-land. There was a dark room where we heard people's cries for help and enemy fire, and saw pictures of the battlefield. It was all put together to give you the feeling of being in the darkness with everything happening all around you. It was really scary to think that people had to live through that. 

Poster to remember the people in Flanders Fields

The symbol of Flander's Fields is a poppy flower because they usually grow freely in the fields but the battle tore them up so much that nothing could grow. Then, as people were buried, they grew between the crosses.

Actual picture (on a postcard) of the battlefield

U.S. Enlistment Poster
Showing Gernmany as a monster

Walking through the museum helped me understand that everyone in the war suffered. All of the military forces on all sides were taking losses in lives and all sides were responsible. There were no monsters like the governments wanted their people to believe. We were all people, and the only ones to fear were the ones in control.