Not to be Missed in Amsterdam

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Topping my list of things to see while in Amsterdam were the Anne Frank House and the Van Gogh Museum.  We got to both in our first 24 hours in Amsterdam.  

The museum opened in 1973.
Our first morning in Amsterdam we went straight to the Van Gogh Museum.  We tried to get there early knowing that the crowds would most likely be bad and they were!  The museum's core collection is comprised of the collection that Vincent Van Gogh's brother Leo, an art dealer, amassed.  This includes 200 of Vincent's paintings and 500 drawings, added to that are 850 of Vincent's letters.  The museum has an excellent audio guide.  They don't let you take pictures inside the museum so I found pictures on the web of some of the paintings I liked. 
In the cafe: Agostina Segatori in Le Tambourin (1887)
The garden of Saint-Paul's Hospital (1889)
Irises (1890)
Flowering plum orchard (after Hiroshige) (1887)
The sower (1888)
Sunflowers (1889)
Wheatfield with crows (1890)
The Anne Frank House is where the Frank family hid during the Second World War and where Anne wrote her diary.  The family, which went into hiding on July 6, 1942, were betrayed in 1944.  German Security Service raided the hiding place on August 4, 1944 and took the Frank family and the four others in hiding with them.  Anne's father Otto Frank is the only one of them who survived the war.  He was instrumental in getting Anne's diary published and establishing the museum, which was opened in 1960.
Anne Frank House
After we got done at the Van Gogh museum, we went to the Rijksmuseum, which holds the Dutch national art collection of some 5,000 paintings, 30,000 pieces of applied art and 17,000 historical artifacts.   You have to check most bags at the museum but they do let you take non-flash pictures.  
The Rijksmuseum's Neo-Gothic architecture
Nassau tunic (1647)
The Threatened Swan - Jan Asselijn (before 1652)
The Kitchen Maid - Johannes Vermeer (1658)
 One of the Netherlands' most famous artists - Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn
Rembrandt Self Portrait as the Apostle Paul (1661)
Rembrandtplein - just couple blocks from our hotel
Rembrandt House Museum
Moses and Aaron Church

In the heart of Amsterdam's former Jewish quarter is the Jewish Historical Museum, which is housed in a complex of four restored synagogues.  Exhibits explain Jewish religious practices, cover the experiences of the first Jews in the Netherlands and explains the Jewish experience before, during and after the Second World War.  The Jewish population in the Netherlands in 1941 was almost 155,000.  In 1947 it wasn't even 15,000.  
Jewish Historical Museum
Exhibits in one of the synagogues
 The Biblical book of Esther was written on a scroll (megillah) to be read on the festival of Purim. 

At the Jewish Historical Museum there was a special art exhibit featuring the work of Else Berg and Leser "Mommie" Schwarz, an artist couple in the Dutch avant-garde. Berg and Schwarz were in a very close relationship from 1909 onwards. They traveled frequently and produced numerous paintings and drawings.  They were part of the Bergen School, an expressionist movement in Dutch painting, and the Amsterdam art scene. After the Second World War broke out, it quickly become impossible for them to exhibit their work. They both refused to wear a Star of David or to go into hiding.  On 12 November 1942 they were taken into custody and sent by way of the Dutch transit camp in Westerbork to Auschwitz, where they were murdered immediately upon arrival.
Calla lilies in a vase (1917) - Else Berg
Hof van Bergen (1916) - Else Berg
Our ticket for the Jewish Historical Museum also included the Portuguese Synagogue. 
The Kahal Kadosh Talmud Torah congregation has worshiped here since 1675.

Seats 1200 men (ground level) and 440 women (upstairs galleries)
The parchment Torah scroll is wrapped in a silk 'sandal' about a meter in length.
Textiles repository
We stopped in the Hermitage to see the Rubens, Van Dyck and Jordaens art exhibit.  In the early 1990s the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia decided to open a branch of the Russian museum in Amsterdam.  This satellite museum, which opened in 2004, displays rotating temporary exhibitions drawn from the Hermitage's collection.  The Rubens, Van Dyck and Jordaens exhibit features 75 paintings and 20 drawings featuring the three great art masters of the Flemish school: Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) and Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678).  It is the first time the Flemish art collection from the St. Petersburg Hermitage has been exhibited in the Netherlands.  You can't take pictures of the paintings but I found images of two of the Rubens paintings.
The Descent from the Cross (1618) - Rubens
The Union of Earth and Water (1618-21) - Rubens
Well...my blogs about Amsterdam are certainly the most I've ever done about a single trip.  My mom and I had a great time and there were just so many pictures I wanted to share from the trip.  I guess it's time to move on to our Paris trip, which will take up a couple blogs too.  

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