Dutch Resistance! Queen's Night!

April 29
The day before Queen's day, Dan and I visited the Dutch resistance museum.  In world war II, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, even though the Netherlands had remained a neutral country.  Not cool, nazis.  At first, the nazis didn't rule over the Dutch as extremely as they did some other countries, but it gradually became more and more severe. The dutch were not fans of invasion or Jewish extermination, so throughout the war they hid Jews (Anne Frank hid in Amsterdam) and resisted the Nazis through a series of strikes.  The resistance, though underground, was strongly organized - they had there own illegal newspapers, and a system of loans, funded in part by the defrauding of the Nazi-controlled Dutch national bank, to support their efforts.

One of the stories of someone involved
in the resistance.

The resistance museum focused on the stories of different individuals who were part of the resistance movement, so it was a lot of reading.   It was fascinating seeing what happened from so many different perspectives.

A dutch poster from WWII.  I believe it reads something along
the lines of "The nazis will try to eat your fiery bread.  Don't let the nazis
steal your bread, because they have bony hands."

That night, I went to tricking practice, and on the bike ride home stumbled upon a fireworks show going on over a lake, in celebration of Queen's night.  I'll talk more about the holiday in my next post, but Queen's night is (obviously) the night before queen's day, and all night people are out partying - its a huge holiday for the Dutch.