Long walks and discoveries: Old Jewish neighbourhood

Last time I wrote about Kattenburg and how the whole neighbourhood was erased to make space for the new apartment buildings. Still, Kattenburg was not so central as the Old Jewish neighbourhood which was actually right in centre of the city and was eventually almost completely obliterated, for various reasons. Not only that the area was poor, neglected and overcrowded but during the WW2 the majority of Jews living here were arrested and sent to concentration camps, while the houses fell in disrepair (in other words, their nice neighbours stole everything from these houses and later used whatever they could as a firewood). After WW2 the decision was made not to rebuilt these houses but to erase everything and create the new neighbourhood instead. So it came to be that famous, vibrant Jodenbreestraat was completely destroyed, re-designed and widened. Judging by the old photographs, it was a very important street full of people and it was a heart of Jewish quarter - Rembrandt used to live here, in a house initially owned by art dealer Hendrick Uylenburgh. I walk here almost daily and its just amazing how completely everything from the past was erased, with utter indifference what it meant for the heart of the city. Rembrandt's house had to be preserved but almost everything else was forever gone and rebuilt to give space for the new apartment buildings. 

The perfect example how utterly destroyed this neighbourhood became was situation around beautiful historical building knowns as Huis De Pinto - built in 1605, this was a house of wealthy Portuguese Jewish family and for centuries was right in the heart of the Jewish district but after WW2 the whole area was completely devastated and destroyed - mind you, not by the bombings or the war but by the Amsterdammers themselves who abused and stole everything they could from the empty old houses whose owners were arrested and deported. At certain point this beautiful old house was literary the only house still standing - the municipality had other plans (to destroy it and to built a motorway here) but the demonstrations and riots prevented this. Everything else is new but Huis De Pinto still stands on its original place.

Right across the street from Rembrandt's house is a funny little crooked house, now serving as a restaurant - The Gosler House is literary the only thing still standing from the whole area and its fascinating to see the city archive collection, where it shows that this little house (owned by Abraham Gosler who was killed in Auschwitz) was once on the corner of the neighbourhood known as Joden Houttuinen - this whole area was demolished and on its place now stands a very modern school of arts. The old photographs are brilliant and they show countless little houses and a very crowded neighbourhood that once stood here. Apparently it was the slum where only the poorest lived. 

Uilenburg is the old Jewish quarter right opposite of Rembrandt's house. Originally the place for the warehouses, it became Jewish area around 17th century and was known as the poorest part of town, overcrowded and  dilapidated, even before WW2. In fact, the municipality tried to re-design and re-construct the whole area since beginning of 1900s - nowadays there is only one wide street (Nieuwe Uilenburgerstraat) where two narrow streets used to be. During WW2 almost everybody who used to live here was killed in concentration camps. If you walk here today, it looks like a perfectly serene and quiet neighbourhood but in fact it has a long past and it was one of the busiest areas of town. 

For example, what you see today as a concert venue, was originally built at the beginning of 1900s as a public bathhouse for all the people in the neighbourhood who had no baths in their homes (Amsterdam had several of these). It looks perfectly fine now, but before 1900 there were two streets on this spot and if you check the old photographs, its mind boggling how much the city has changed in the meantime. 

The complete elimination of old historical areas right in the centre of city was not over - the municipality had also set their minds on erasing the old market squares around Marken and Waterlooplein. When the plans came to destroy the old historical quarter around Nieuwmarkt (to make space for the new Metro line) this was the last straw - the citizens passionately fought to keep the old houses and there were genuine riots, fights with police and resistance from residents. This constant demolition had to be stopped. Once you find about this, it makes you wonder how anything was saved at all. 

Long walks and discoveries: Kattenburg

One of the reason why I mostly prefer to do my walks alone is that in real life I actually hardly know anyone with interest in history, art or architecture - recently I spoke to some acquaintances who are, just like me, ex-patriots transplanted to new country and no, they had absolutely no curiosity about what its all about (Alfie) - for them, it was enough to know practical things like bus and tram stop, the location of the nearest supermarket and such. My enthusiasm about the place I decide to live was obviously annoying to them, like why such a fuss about some old houses. Well, I better do my walks alone than - besides, while travelling for many years as a cruise ship employee, I trained myself to look at the world around me with curiosity so yes, I have an eye for details and a sense of feeling the atmosphere.

On my walks I admired the beautiful, historical building that is now The National Maritime Museum (Het Scheepvaartmuseum) but has trough the centuries always been connected with maritime one way or the other, like the whole neighbourhood here  - because of epidemics, I have not visited the museum yet but I walked around the area and noticed that right after the museum, the street is dominated by stern, prison-like Royal Navy gate (from 17th century) and the rest of the street is strangely modern. "This can't be" I said to myself "If the museum and royal navy had buildings here centuries ago, these must have been normal civilian houses on this spot as well". Boy, was I right. I did some research and this is what I have found.

Amsterdam is of course, much more than pretty canals and fairy tale houses - step outside of the famous canal ring and you will see modern buildings like anywhere else in the world. The more I discover about the town, the more I witness that surprisingly large parts of centre have also been completely erased and demolished to make space for new ideas. In this case, the whole neighbourhood of Kattenburg has been eliminated and re-designed. I am not talking just a few old houses, I am talking about the whole darn neighbourhood. 

What my eye noticed immediately was a strange dichotomy between old Royal Navy complex and the characterless modern buildings opposite - these two had absolutely nothing in common. So I checked the collection in the City Archives and voilà it turns out there used to be not one but two narrow streets in this spot: Grote Kattenburgerstraat and the Kleine Kattenburgerstraat. And the busy neighbourhood it was, with literary hundreds of people crowding in here, mostly people working in the docks and living in poverty. So gradually this whole area became neglected until sometime after WW2 the whole neighbourhood was demolished and re-built again, very cleverly they had built facades on Kattenburgerplein in the old style, as a tribute to what used to be here earlier. I am still shocked that municipality made such decisions to completely erase the whole neighbourhood, not just one building or a two but everything - however its been said that it was a depilated ghetto not worth saving and locals probably prefer to live in a new, modern buildings.

Being an old softie who does not belong to these modern times anyway, there is no doubt which face of Kattenburg I would prefer, given a chance. My heart aches as I look at the old pictures of the neighbourhood that is not here anymore. Than again, people who live here now have immensely more comfort now than previous Kattenburgers, so they probably don't miss living in old conditions. Myself, I could probably be perfectly happy even without the electricity. Give me a candle and a log to put in the fire place. 

Đorđe Balašević (1953 - 2021)

 

It looks as this blog is slowly turning into perpetual list of obituaries. People who had marked my life in one way or the other are dying like flies left and right - not unusual, as I am middle aged now myself and perhaps it is expected that my idols will eventually pack it up and go beyond the rainbow. Everyone I listened, watched and followed in my youth is now fragile and slowly fading - reminder of my own mortality.

What makes a great artist? I would say that it matters how many lives this person has touched, but this is all so relative - Vivaldi was forgotten for centuries and than posthumously he became known and celebrated across the continents. Still, I believe there is not a person who lived in Ex Yu and who was not familiar with at least one song by Đole - he was a widely known, popular and much loved singer/songwriter who somehow inspired passionate following and managed to continue performing in sold-out concerts even as the aftermath of war divided artists and audiences - he was that rare phenomenon, a true star of the former Yu, who still had public eating from his hand whenever he went. 

Đorđe Balašević had a long and distinguished career so he was many things to different people. To my ears he was kind of continuation of what Arsen Dedić started, namely a chansonier with his own unique voice - where Arsen got Adriatic sea in his veins, Đole was all about the rural countryside of Vojvodina; he was unabashedly and proudly inspired by stories about small towns, horse farms, loves and sorrows of ordinary "small people" caught in a wheel of life. From the very start, when he was still a member of the band (later he went solo) Đole had instantly recognisable musical signature, a special way with poetic lyrics that separated him from the rest of the crowd - just like with Arsen, with this guy you heard much more than ordinary, craftsmen text. He was a gentle, sentimental poet with a soft spot for underdogs and forgotten people but he also had a wicked sense of humour - on top of this all, he was also a enthusiastic and grateful raconteur who often entertained audiences for hours in his live concerts. 

It is a true testament to his personality that he continued to be much loved across the whole territory of Ex Yu even as the country itself fell apart amidst bitter acrimony - in a poisonous atmosphere where being this  or that, belonging to one or the other tribe could basically block the doors, Balašević basically had absolutely no obstacles and he travelled and performed everywhere. His oeuvre  is quite large and almost intimidating in a sheer quantity, there is a lot to chose from but for me somehow its always about the very beginnings - those first few years are carved in my memory, they were the soundtrack of my life when I was still so young that I was going to school and listened the radio. (Later in life, I was actually working on the radio) He was a good man and we are all very sorry that he passed away, it feels almost as a member of the family. 

I still remember how I cried when hearing that Arsen had died - alone in some pizzeria in Napoli. Last night the news of Đole's death caught me off guard in the middle of the walk and I cried trough deserted streets of Amsterdam. We are such stuff as dreams are made on. 

Long walks and discoveries: Sloterdijk

 

Because Corona left the city streets deserted (again!) I have continued my walks around Amsterdam - they didn't result in any weight loss unfortunately but I do have great pleasure in roaming in various parts of town that I have never seen before and since I have natural curiosity about a history and the place where I live, this brings me a lot of joy. Not only that I carefully select areas that I would love to discover but I take pictures and later do a little research about what I have seen. I am simply shocked how much of the city was previously completely unknown to me, as my work & social life was generally focused on a centre and until now I simply never had a reason to explore suburbs or anything "over there"  now, for the very first time I am starting to get some idea what means when people say "East", "West", "South" or various names of the neighbourhoods. 

The latest discovery was a very distant part of town called Sloterdijk - its a completely industrialised edge of town, created at the spot where once stood a village of the same name. I couldn't care less for the factories, railway station or a horrible mega-large cement buildings that dominate this area but I immediately spotted a cute little church that looked completely out of place here: in the middle of all this metallic horror there is something like a little historical oasis, an old simple village church and a few houses around it. On the way to this spot there was a sculpture, that I found out later, represents a farmers who used to live on this spot, before the village was completely erased to make space for industrialisation. Luckily, the centre of village - a church with its cemetery - was preserved and it still stands here, like a fairy tale little leftover from some ancient times. 

I walked around The Petruskerk with greatest interest - there are a lot of ancient tombstones of local people buried here but occasionally there is even a new arrival, like when I spotted a name of famous Dirk van der Broek who was the owner of a popular supermarket brand and who passed away last year - I buy groceries in a supermarket named after him, so naturally I was familiar with his name. The church itself dates back to 17th century and has been restored several times, it still serves as a wedding place for locals and I was very curious about little historical cottages around it, as they are really bordering the cemetery so I wondered how appropriate that is from a hygienic point of view (I have never seen people living in such proximity to cemetery before) - the whole place is almost like a little bubble in the middle of otherwise ugly industrial zone. There was absolutely nothing interesting or beautiful to see around, even though I walked a but further down south along Bos en Lommer district, which I need to re-visit again for a better introduction. 

About hateful comments

Just found out that back in my homeland they are discussing the possibility to legally stop people from commenting under the newspaper articles. This is a very interesting development as we are still in a early stages of Internet and obviously the whole humanity needs to learn how to use it without being hurtful, hateful and aggressive. If anybody told me just a few years ago that comments might be blocked, I would find it offensive and dangerous but right now this seems as a perfectly logical solution.

Not long ago, in some other, pre-Covid times, there was a time when comments were actually funny. Often I would laugh out loud because of some wise remark or a punch line that was million times more entertaining than the original article itself. Obviously, when not under the stress and in the normal circumstances people can actually be genuinely funny and checking out the comments became regular part of reading the news - first you read the news, than you go for the comments. Or you go straight for the comments because there is always some funny guy there who will make you spill your coffee. But something happened with time and we must all had noticed that comments eventually turned ugly.

Instead being funny, entertaining or witty, they just became vitriolic, hurtful, ignorant, racist and psychotic - in the turmoil of uncertainty about everything (the virus itself, the news, medicine, scientists, government, God) people became more and more aggressive, protected by anonymity of Internet and it became almost a norm that under everything and anything there will always be a psycho who will argue, rage and spew abuses. 

The longer our present drama continued, the more these comments became hurtful. I have noticed this because I am following the news and out of old habit, continued to check comment section but it became so upsetting that I have stopped. Reading these comments, you might get the impression that compassion, understanding and goodness has completely been erased and eliminated from the world. I am not even talking about disagreements, I am talking about articles about Covid-connected deaths, where people still argue, curse and refuse to believe them - there was a doctor's suicide recently in my homeland and abuse in comments sections were just incredibly alarming. Instead of feeling compassion for somebody who obviously couldn't take it anymore, the anonymous mob was just horrible. I had to stop reading these comments because it felt disturbing, like I am witnessing a public lynch (of someone who had already committed suicide). 

The first sign that things might change was when I discovered that many times comments were blocked on youtube - I actually wanted to compliment something (in general I prefer to leave a positive remark, instead of adding to negativity) and it was not possible. And that was perfectly fine, I understand why it was done and it made a perfect sense - you are here to watch the video clip and whatever opinions you might have, keep them for yourself. Than Yahoo News did exactly the same - they simply blocked the comment section. The news are here, from all around the world, but the wide, anonymous mass is now unable to spread the hatred, anger, frustration and their mad theories. And seriously, I have absolutely no problem with that - people will always complain and in this case they might claim their freedom of speech was taken away from them, but in reality the haters will simply be unable to continue their misogynist, racist and awful business. One day somebody will have to look back and figure it out who are these anonymous haters, so brave behind their nicknames - for now, we need to carefully re-organise and somehow arrange this virtual space. I am all for closing comment sections completely and serving simply articles or whatever the web site is for - people who want to continue discussing, arguing and hating will find forums where to do so, but it won't be so drastically out in the open.  

Red Telephone Box Graveyard, North Yorkshire, England

 

"View from My Window" by David A. Heitmiller

This is a beautiful poem written by David A. Heitmiller, who passed away in July and its about the "View from my window" that became a world phenomenon and one thing that connected us all in the times of this horrible epidemics. It moved me very much and actually made me cry. 

Floating around in cyberspace,

take a photo from your place.

What you see through your window,

where in the world we want to know.

Post the picture for all to see

and then add some words to tell me

what is it like for you out there,

we want to know because we care.

Now I can see what you see

through your window shared with me.

Here I am and what I see,

our beautiful human family.

How are you coping with the news?

We see it all, some gorgeous views,

and narrow streets and blank walls,

birds and creatures big and small.

Some lost loved ones, very sad.

Couldn't say goodbye to mom or dad.

We share your loss and cry with you.

Reaching out, we sing the blues.

Less alone gazing out your window.

I’ve met a friend I do not know.

Thanks for showing me your special place,

Around the world we share some space.

David Heitmiller

April 2020

Blast from the past

 

Dear reader, it is February already!

Everything around me is still closed, we are still in a (extended) lockdown + now we have  curfew that inspired violent riots, burning, looting and hooligans fighting against the police so my goal was just to keep my chin up, head above the water and mind my own business. For some reason I am still stagnating with the reading but that just means that instead of literature, I am reading chapters on Wikipedia and such. I am also enjoying long walks and discovering different neighbourhoods that I have never seen before, but this actually might be another essay.

Out of the blue, on my Facebook page, I got a reminder about something that I posted 10 years ago. It was a photo taken at my than current cruise ship, while we were in South Africa. What you see on this picture is a typical delivery of new boxes back than - our deliveries were so huge, so monumental, so enormous and consistent week after week, that it took a team of twenty people just to get all of this unpacked from the pallets and bring on the ship, with elevators to the floor where we had to open and distribute new products. Before we opened this, it had to be inventoried and checked - and since this was time consuming (but it had to be done in a certain time frame), I was the one responsible for this while my colleagues worked in their places. So I would go, week after week, trough all of these boxes, check do delivery lists match the quantity of the products delivered, note down all the discrepancies and than slowly work my way trough the mountain of these boxes, day after day. Usually this mess would be cleaned and empty just in time for the new delivery. And than I will start everything all over again. It was extremely hard work and I kind of don't even want to think about those days.

The reason why I am writing this is because apparently lots of my ex-colleagues are looking back with nostalgia and yearning. Many of them are claiming they miss the good old days and even ask me do I feel the same. Lots of them are at home, unhappy and frustrated with the fact that the world epidemics forced them to stop with the work on cruise ships. And I find it so mind-boggling: our work was so incredibly hard in every possible way (psychically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, etc) that regular people who have no knowledge how the cruise industry works behind the scenes would never ever accept or work in these conditions. In fact, 90% of the people imagine that our life was sun and fun and Pina Colada since "we lived on a ship" but in reality we were living in a windowless, shared cabins and worked seven days a week. Just look at this photo and tell me who in their right mind would miss this kind of life? And it constantly confuses and even angers me when my ex colleagues claim they miss the ship life. 

What exactly do they miss? Let's look a little closer. Sharing a super tiny space with a complete stranger? Eating greasy food in a canteen? Or even slightly better version in a guest area, where you are treated as intruder? Do they miss working 12 hours per day? Or dealing with 2 000 guests who clearly don't care to buy anything now but will come on the last day and demand the same product that you were offering for one day only and can't possibly pull out of the hat now? Deck sales, crew sales, midnight sales and all these things that take even more working hours than usual? Or do they miss constant drills, trainings and hundred other obligatory things that are happening in one's "free time"? I mean, seriously, the only thing worth it is the chance (if you can) to go outside and see the world - and even this was not something guaranteed because the workload might keep you on the ships for weeks. Sure, there is always a camaraderie and it has to be wherever people live and work together, but this is far from a high school party - its the result of necessity and I remember most of the time just being annoyed with a constant company and making a lot of effort to find my own corner. 

I understand that many of my ex colleagues look back trough the rose glasses and remember things like fun. "Oh, what a great times we had together on that ship!" And than I remind them how we slaved for weeks without ever having a chance to go outside, how we worked until 4 a.m. and slept just a few hours between shifts, how badly we were treated by a ship's medical team (no matter whats wrong, you'll get a Paracetamol), how the only chance to have clean clothes was to use crew laundry room at the crack of a dawn (because there was nobody around than), how totally and utterly exhausted we were all of the times and there must have been a reason why our contracts lasted maximum 6 months and not more - because they found out that after that period people can not work and function properly. I am also aware that those who "miss the ships" actually worked on a cruise ships just a short period of time so they remember it as a nice, adventurous episode. Obviously, there had to be a reason why they left in a first place. I stayed and stayed and stayed and worked for fifteen years, long after the initial first excitement had evaporated. I had longed and dreamed about different life on land where as a regular civilian I would work just 9 to 5 and not be available on call all the time, obliged to run for a midnight drills, drug tests, trainings and all sorts of clockwork schedules. And now when I finally live on land and people still ask me do I miss the ships, I think they must be joking. Absolutely not. I worked so hard and my life was so exhausting that I have absolutely no desire to ever step on a cruise ship again (in fact, I have kind of distaste for the sea). Just remembering what kind of experiences we had to go trough, fills me with anger. Most of the time I don't dwell on this but the photo above was a reminder on my life ten years ago. When I see this, I feel like I have died and arrived in Heaven.