Response to Geert Mak's Amsterdam

Before reading this I knew that Amsterdam was invaded by Germany, but I didn't really know the full extent to which it shaped Amsterdam's future culture. The in depth analysis of the non-Jewish Amsterdam citizens during the German occupation brought to mind a quote that was posted on the wall of my high school English teacher. Ellie Wiesel, who was a holocaust survivor said:

"The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference"

For some reason that quote has always stuck with me, and after reading this, I think it applies directly to the Dutch people of Amsterdam that turned their heads the other way as hundreds of thousands of their fellow Amsterdammers were being exterminated. Even worse, is the part about the Dutch police being the driving force that rounded up the Jewish people and did much of the work for Germany. The statistic that really struck me is that there were never more than 60 German Soldiers in Amsterdam at any given time, and yet they were able to organize a mass genocide. It wasn't just the Dutch police either; the train engineer told himself that he was just driving a train for transportation, and completely ignored the fact that he was transporting people to their deaths. Germany did a lot of damage with their hate, but it was the indifference of the Dutch people that allowed the genocide to reach its massive proportions.

I also found it interesting how their actions during the war created a moral panic that was prevalent for decades. How did this moral panic translate into Amsterdam's current culture? I also wonder, how would Amsterdam be different today if they were able to maintain their neutrality in World War II?

A Short Bio

To begin, I am 21 years old, and I will be 22 by the time we leave to Amsterdam. Originally I'm from Spokane, WA, which is on east side of the state if you're not from around here. I spent 10 years living in California and Illinois, so I've had a chance to experience a little variety. At the same time, I have never been outside of North America, so as you can imagine, I am extremely excited to live abroad this summer!

My Interests:

Now that you have read the "where I'm from" part of the bio, let's move on to some of my potential research interests. First of all, I am a computer engineering major, and technology has been a large part of my life for a long time. I am really excited about finding ways to incorporate technology into my research this summer. In particular, I would really like to explore the video podcast idea and some of the possibilities surrounding it.

Even though I don't know a lot about it yet, I feel like there are a lot of interesting questions that come out of Amsterdam's extremely liberal policies. I have thought about possibly focusing on how their political philosophies affect culture, or how drug use affects business locally versus internationally. For example, are companies in other countries that don't have such a liberal drug policy willing to conduct business with companies in Amsterdam? As a result is Holland a more self-sufficient country that focuses on internal commerce?

These are some of the ideas that I have been thinking about over spring break, but I think I will have a better feel for what I want explore further, as I learn more details about the research and the resulting deliverables. Until I lock in my research topic, I hope this gives you a rough idea of the direction I am thinking about going. If you're thinking about working with me, I'm a pretty easy-going guy, and I am planning on making whatever we do as sweet as possible :)

Just in case you forgot what I look like, here's a picture of me that I happened to have on my laptop from last spring:




-Tim

Update: After reading some other people's bios, I would also like to mention that music is a large part of my life. I am into lots of different types of music, and I'm always interested in hearing new stuff from all genres. I really enjoy good sound, whether it's from a high-end stereo, or a live performance. While I don't know much about music in Amsterdam, I would definitely be interested in focusing my research in some way on music.

Finally, I also love snowboarding, and I'm interested into looking into doing some glacier riding in Switzerland after the conference. I've been holding out to buy my plane ticket until I see if anyone wants to hang out in Switzerland for a while after we're done. So if anyone thinks that might be fun, let me know and we can try and get something planned.