Day 3: Brussels

I will definitely need new shoes, and possibly new feet when I come home from Europe.

Which is to say that D. and I have walked, walked, walked around two of Europe's larger cities. And they have those cobblestone streets that pulverize one's feet. I'm hoping we can get some kind of rickshaw tour of Brussels.

A couple of thoughts about Amsterdam while the thoughts are fresh.

One: you really get a sense of how over-regulated America is when you come to Europe. No one wears bicycle helmets. Not adults. Not kids. Not adults driving kids around in the little wooden baskets that are built over the front wheel. Second, there is no such thing as the ADA here. Sure, they may prohibit discrimination against the handicapped [and/or the "differently abled"] but they don't require buildings to be rejiggered to include ramps and handles. Also, I noticed no smoke detectors in any buildings that I have seen. Third, their cars are so tiny and underpowered and rudimentary, there is no way most of them would pass any sort of safety test. In short, if America thinks that it is the land of the free, in so many ways it is not.

And the two things that Amsterdam does regulate - sex [for money] and drugs - both do work for society's benefit. They provide safe environments for people to do what they would otherwise do but do illegally, and the government can gain taxation revenue and also look out for the public health [both appropriate uses of government authority.]

We did visit the Anne Frank house this morning. It is undeniably moving to see this building, which stands as the testament to one young girl's brave struggle to examine, preserve and document her humanity in a situation which sought to, and succeeded in, depriving her of that humanity. And in doing so, she became the symbol for the humanity in all the innocent victims of the Nazi and Axis killing machines.

But ultimately, the experience was a disappointing one for me. And if I fully explained why, it would take me too long. Let me say this much: to quote from Walter Benjamin's "Illuminations", the proper view of history is "to retain that image of the past which unexpectedly appears to man singled out in a moment of danger." The contemplative, precociously mature voice of Anne Frank, to me, is too safe, too perfectly cast as victim. She seems predestined for an early martyrdom, as if she knew her ultimate fate from the inception of her diaries [and what would her diaries mean if she would have lived?]

Rather, I believe the story of that era is the story of people like the Oxford and Eaton educated RAF pilots, who - though critically outnumbered - held the Germans at bay for two or more years prior to fortifications from the Americans. People who left privilege or safety for service. Fifteen and sixteen year old American farmboys who left Nebraska and Iowa, lied about their age, and enlisted, only to die on the beaches of Normandy and in the forests of the Ardennes. The well-known or monied who, though influence and connection could have evaded service [think George Bush the younger, or Ronald Reagan] but did no such thing. People such as Ted Williams and George H.W. Bush who valiantly served without expectation of anything more than the privilege of service to country. The negro, Mexican, women, or minority who even with bitterness against his or her native or adopted land a justifiable position, served without complaint for the greater purpose. And every businessman and woman who did not gouge, did not profiteer, did not collaborate, and sacrificed potential profit knowing that price controls, wage freezes, rent controls were part of that effort, too. That, to me, is the story of the good of World War II.

And let's not forget evil. The nameless collaborators, conspirators, profiteers, architects and actors both in Europe and abroad who designed, built, enabled and executed the plan to kill so many. These mundane evil, as Hannah Arendt so aptly put it, were like you and me in so many ways. In looks and lifestyle, in wants and in aspirations, they resembled us. But they defined themselves by acts as trivial as revealing the whereabouts of a small band hiding in the upstairs annex at Prinsengracht 263. And for some transgressions, there cannot be any meaningful human forgiveness. These images to me define the experience contextually of Anne Frank. Otherwise, her story is too pristine to truly resonate.

Also: the "liberation" was obliquely referred to in the presentation of the materials at the Anne Frank House. I wanted to yell, "The liberation made possible by American forces, armaments, British forces, free French and the very small but determined Dutch resistance." Or more like "When your country was staining its skivvies, waiting to be bailed out after stupidly and immorally clinging to neutrality, our women were building boats to carry the bombs to kill the bad guys."

But I digress ...

Brussels is a much more stately city than Amsterdam. Amsterdam has charm. Brussels is a big, serious, imposing city. In Amsterdam, the shops open late, the people seem to go to work late and knock off early. Shops may be open as few as 4 days a week, without that being considered abnormal. A local pancake house opened at noon each day. Brussels is much more conventional in the way that it operates. More traffic ... [there seemed to be 10 bicycles for every man, woman and child in Amsterdam] ... more people, more different ethnicities ...

And unfortunately, we travel south and west to Bruges tomorrow, so we leave the Welcome Hotel much too soon.