Day 1, June 14

I flew out of La Crosse Thur. June 13th & met dear friends Dana Humphrey & Lolle Boettcher in Detroit.  We share a rich history in our interest in the Holocaust.  All of us have Fellowships at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum & are members of the Midwest Holocaust Education Consortium that meets yearly in La Crosse.  Dana has been at the last two Holocaust Educator Workshops at Viterbo staying at our home & being my right arm when we entertain presenters.  We had an easy eight-hour flight to Amsterdam arriving at 8:00 a.m Netherlands time, 1:00 a.m. La Crosse time.  We met the other 10 members of our tour group plus tour leaders 90 year- old Cor Sujik & his son Joop & hit the ground running. 

Cor was a friend of Anne Frank's father Otto & has been leading Holocaust Historic Sites Tours for over 20 years.  He is retiring after the June trip & a final one in Sept. so I felt I could not miss this chance to touch history & to see history through the eyes of one who has lived it, the same way I feel about hearing Holocaust surviviors.

I have heard Amsterdam referred to as the "Venice of the North" so it was appropriate that we began with a canal river cruis e.  Most of us had a few head-nodding moments, but the for the most part the refreshing air kept us aw ake.  We then toured the Corrie Ten Boom Museum.  The first Holocaust book I have a memory of reading was Corrie's book The Hiding Place so I enjoyed seeing the house where she resided & hid Jews.   

After lunch we toured the Anne Frank House.  I last was there in 1969 & found many changes.   We finally checked into our beautiful hotel at 7:00 p.m. absolutely dragging.  After a great dinner--I had the best steak of my life-- we dropped into our feather beds totally exhausted.