War Museum Amsterdam

The Nazis followed a three step plan: registration, concentration and deportation. In this tour I will show you what happened in Amsterdam. There is no place that tells the story about WW2 in Amsterdam so succinctly as the Museum of the Dutch Resistance does. Besides showing you the different steps the Nazi took in the preparation of the deportations, much attention is paid to the organization of the resistance. The Nazis used the coastal area to execute members of the resistance. An impressive Honory Cemetery can be visited in the tour Kennemerdunes.

Deportation place

Located in the heart of the old Jewish quarter, is the former theatre. During the war the Nazis made Jews assemble in this building. This was their last stop in Amsterdam and the first step in the deportation process that ended in Auswitsch or Sobibor for most of the Dutch Jews.

Also we will see the new Holocaust monument and (if open) we can visit the Portuguese synagogue, where nothing changed since 1675. The Nazis wanted to use this place as the assembly point but they preferred the theatre. Now this is part of the new Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam, opened in March 2024.

New Holocaust Museum

In March 2024, the Holocaust museum in Amsterdam opened its doors. It is the only Holocaust museum in the world on a site where the deportation of Jews took place.

The museum is located in a former schoolbuilding in the district where many Jewish Amsterdammers lived before the Holocaust. The school was the neighbouring building of the Jewish Nursery School, which was transformed by the Nazis  into an assembly point for Jewish children awaiting transportation.  The director of the school was a member of the Dutch resistance and through the school they managed to prevent the deportation of more than 600 Jewish children. One of these children became mayor of Amsterdam in 1983. Accross the street is the former Jewish theatre, where the Nazis locked up the adults. Now these two buildings together form the Holocaust museum.

The museum tells the visitor all about the Nazi persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands. Amsterdam needed this museum.  The Netherlands suffered the largest number as a result of the persecution of the Jews, of the countries in Western Europe occupied by the Nazis, both in terms of percentages and in absolute numbers.

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Private walking tour Amsterdam

We will show you the highlights the city centre has to offer. Of course you will see Dam square, where Amsterdam started. People were already living on dikes along the Amstel river, but around 1250 these two dikes were connected by a dam. We will show you these two dikes and tell you all about the Dam cities in Holland.
The medieval church at Dam square has no tower. We will tell you why. Also I will explain why the street in between the church and the Palace had a different name during WW2. You will see the borders of the city, from 1350, 1375 and 1450. We will show you why most spout gables can be found at the Prinsencanal and the biggest canal houses on the eastern side on the UNESCO canal district. After this walk you can tell everybody at home why for centuries, visitors called Amsterdam the beautiful virgin with the stinking breath

Red light district Amsterdam

The red light district is the old harbour of Amsterdam. The sailors needed bars, churches and prostitutes. The sailors are gone, but the rest is still there. Let us know if you want to see the area or not. The morning is the best time of day to see the area because there is not much activity yet, but you will get a good idea of what is going on here. The area is normally just a small part of the tour and we mainly focus on the beautiful gables of the canalhouses, the architecture and the two oldest canals in Amsterdam.

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