The first Jews arrived in the heart of old Amsterdam in 1600, fleeing the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal; shortly afterward, Jews fleeing Germany and Eastern Europe also arrived. Many of the buildings associated with the history of the Jews in Amsterdam were in use until World War II, and some are still standing. The Portuguese Synagogue, dating from 1675, houses the Jewish Historical Museum and its portrayal of 400 years of Jewish life in the Netherlands: religious objects and prayer books, ritual silver, a ritual bath, the gradual impoverishment of Amsterdam’s ghetto in the 19th century, the birth of Zionism, and the arrival of the German occupation forces, which meant the end of nearly three-and-a-half centuries of Jewish life. The paintings of Charlotte Salomon, who perished in the Holocaust, are a visual analogue to the life of Anne Frank. (15 minutes)