Picto Diary - 17 May 2016 - Mars

Above: Anne Frank Museum. Prinsengracht 263-267, Amsterdam, Netherlands. 17 May 2016 (file image).

Above: Anne Frank. File image from May 1942. Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Were Anne Frank to have survived, she would be 85 years old, today. She died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945.

Montage and I visited this site today, 17 May 2016. It is sobering - and disturbing - to imagine that 72 years ago, walking the street where we find ourselves today, were Nazi troops rounding up Jewish people to send them to death camps.

The museum building seen in the image is an enclosure... not the façade of the building owned by Otto Frank, Anne Frank's father. The enclosure surrounds the original innards of the Amsterdam three story walk-up, including the back annex, where Anne Frank, her parents, sister and four others, spent two years in hiding from the Nazis.

Montage and I, along with a bevy of other tourists who had pre-booked 11 AM tickets, were able to walk throughout the rooms where Anne, her family and friends cowered in silence, fearful daily of capture, for two long years. The stress that this must have caused the hiders and their abettors can hardly be imagined.

Post occupation of Amsterdam from 1939 the Nazis began to systematically make life more difficult for resident Jews. It started with Jews being required to wear yellow stars on their clothing. it escalated to forbidding Jews to use public transportation and limiting their shopping hours. By 1942 it "ended" with Jewish people being rounded up for shipment to Nazi death camps.

Anne, thirteen to fifteen years old during the period of her hiding with her family, wrote a diary about her experience, before, in 1944, she and her family were "outed" by an informer and transported to various of the Nazi concentration camps. Here diary was found strewn on the floor of the annex by Christian employees of father Otto Frank's business and given to Otto Frank after the war. Original pages of the diary, in Anne's handwriting, can be seen in the museum.

Anne Frank's diary, first published in the 1950's by her father, the only one of the eight to survive the war, was entitled, "The Diary of a Young Girl." To date, the book is one of the most widely read books in the world and has sold 35 million copies.

I'm half way through reading "Diary of a Young Girl" for the first time. Hearing Anne's descriptions of the Secret Annex and reading about the stressed interactions of the hiders and their abettors was made all the more poignant for me as I walked through the Secret Annex today.

Above: Circa 1965 Citroen DS 21. Amsterdam, Netherlands. 17 May 2016.

As Assistant to the President of the LDS Mission in Paris, France the final half of 1967, I frequently, driving a DS 21, similar to the car pictured above, chauffeured the LSD Mission President, H. Duane Anderson and his wife Leola to various parts of the mission in the Paris area and throughout western France.

Mitt Romney became Assistant to the President a year or so after I departed the mission in January 1968. While chauffeuring President and Sister Anderson in the same "mission car" DS that I had driven, Romney had a collision. Sister Anderson died in the accident.

Romney was flown home to recover from his injuries. He later returned to France to complete his mission. French authorities exonerated Romney from driver culpability, blaming the accident on the driver of the other vehicle involved in the accident.

President Anderson was injured in the accident. He returned to his home in Idaho Falls, ID, United States as soon as he was able.

Note: In hindsight, it seems amazing that we 20-year-olds from the American "provinces" where driving was relatively easy, where most people assiduously attempted follow the rules of the road, were piloting high performance vehicles in the challenging driving environment of France, where many drivers wore gloves and ignored speed limits.

All cars were stick shift. Every day was a rally. Back then, "suicide roads," with a middle lane open to traffic going in either direction, proliferated. Driving in France was a form of playing "Chicken." These days in France, "middle lane" configured highways are rare, but the rally impulse remains.

Above: Canal View. Amsterdam, Netherlands. 17 May 2016.

Montage and Mwah (sic) took a circle tour by boat.

Above: Munttoren. Amsterdam, Holland. 17 May 2016.

The tower was originally part of one of the main gates to Amsterdam's medieval city wall. Built in 1480.

Image is as seen from our canal tour boat.

Above: Amaryllis Bulbs. Flower Market. Amsterdam, Netherlands. 17 May 2016.

Above: Cheese. Flower Market. Amsterdam, Netherlands. 17 May 2016.

Edam and Gouda are the two big cheeses of Holland. After that, Queen Margrethe.

Above: Montage observes asymmetrical building. Amsterdam, Holland. 17 May 2016.

Above: Tesla. Prinsengracht. Amsterdam, Holland. 17 May 2016.

Plenty of Teslas near our hotel on Prinsengracht.

Montage and Mwah (sic) were surprised when arriving at Schipol Airport cabstand yesterday. There was a long line of Teslas, one of which we took into the city to our hotel.

Smooth ride! But, rear seat a bit restrictive... especially for a big person.

Our Tesla cab driver noted that the local government was quick to issue taxi licenses to electric cars and to temporize on license issuance for gas powered cars.

The taxi driver said Tesla had recently opened an assembly plant in The Netherlands. There are three Tesla dealers in Amsterdam. Later on we noticed Tesla's parked charging stations at various locations throughout the inner city.

http://mashable.com/2013/08/23/tesla-netherlands/#kucuJQ7IWPq6

Tesla seems to have a foothold in Europe.... at least here in Amsterdam.

Earlier today, while waiting for Montage to see a man about a dog, and while seated at a cafe table, I read an article where Bob Lutz was interviewed and asked about Tesla.

Car guy Lutz said...

The last car at GM I was responsible for was the Volt... and, its one of my few fails. It has different electric motor technology than Tesla's S model, which is much better.

I love the S. it deserves to be successful.

The X is going to have some problems. Doors don't work well. Frame too weak.

The new, smaller Tesla coming out has production delays... people are pre buying it... but, it remains to be seen if its going to come out any time soon. Production delays are expected.

Apropos production delays, I read another article later in the day stating that Musk's constant missing of deadlines is driving Wall Street crazy. Because, in missing deadlines, Musk also scores successes. Musk replies that he is engaged in transformational endeavors and as such, to motivate his people, he needs to set deadlines, many of which he knows, at the outset, won't be reached.

Musk has the kind of vision that will be necessary to save the human race... that is, he sees the need for mankind to hedge its survival bets by colonizing another planet. Musk (45 something) has said he'd like to live out his retirement years on Mars. He appears to be moving successfully towards his goal. SpaceX recently scored its second successful landing, on a barge, of a space delivery vehicle.

In November 2015, I was present when Musk was guest speaker at a private equity fund limited partners meeting to which I was invited (thru the fund, I am a SpaceX investor). I obtained the mike during Q and A and asked Musk if he'd read "The Martian" or seen the movie. He said he loved the book and the movie both. Each, he said, serve to get people excited about and interested in space travel. And, that, he said, is a good thing.

For one reason or another, earth will be come uninhabitable in time. Imminent - at least in geologic time frame - are the blowing up of the Yellowstone Caldera, the slippage of the Pacific Plate near Seattle, and the probability of a species destroying comet hitting the earth, as occurred in Yucatan, 70 million years ago... all of these potential disasters can eliminate life on earth as we know it.

Physicist Stephen Hawking is also an advocate of extra terrestrial exploration and colonization.

Addendum:


When visiting the Van Gogh museum in 1978, I was awestruck by the vivid blobs of thick color on each painting. It was then I realized that any copy of a work of art is a poor substitute for seeing the real thing. If you love art, or a particular artist, it is worth the effort to see the original!
Your trip sounds so enjoyable. Thanks, as always, for sharing it with all of us armchair travelers.
Your cuz,

Sara
Palo Alto, CA


zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Jack Aroon,
Mahwah, NJ


Hi Steve, Hope your flight was great. I'm sorry, but none of these pictures will open. Would love to see them. Thanks for thinking of me.

Bea,
Livermore, CA


Many, especially the younger, don’t love you in Amsterdam. Still some good Indonesian food there.

the monk,
Salina, UT


When I lived in the Netherlands, one of the first things I was told was that if I hit a biker or a pedestrian with my car (a mini, mini van called a Toyota Picnic) - it was my fault - no matter what And could lead to deportation. Ahhhh the Van Gogh Museum! The Dutch mostly just don't get customer service in their egalitarian, semi socialist system. They don't even like to be thanked.

Kristen,
Park City, UT