Sojourn #6: Amsterdam: The Renaissance vs. the 21st. Century; How Things Have Changed!

The last days of July 2016 found me in Amsterdam, Holland, a city I have visited several times and each time I am awed to be in a place where one experiences the fast forward movement of history’s 500 year kaleidoscope, 1600 - 2000.

 

Klaas and Erica Leegwater, my Amsterdam hosts in Hoofdorp, just a few miles from Amsterdam. Klaas is a communications manager for Dutch railways; Erica is an optometrist. They are active members of the Hoofdorp Mennonite Church. They have two adult children, Erica is a portrait artist and Klaas is an avid sailor with a 30’ sailing yacht.

 

In Holland, Mennonite churches are ‘Doopsgezinde’ (those who baptize upon confession of faith).

These two photos are a commentary on the sad state of affairs on Christianity in Europe. After nearly two millennia of conflict and corruption European Christendom is essentially DOA. Solid edifices that were once Christian churches are now serving as stores, recreation halls, and art galleries. These two photos are of a former Hoofsdorp Protestant church, now it is a gathering place for those needing the solace of alcoholic spirits and camaraderie.

On July 27th I crossed the Channel from Holland to Harwich, England aboard the world’s largest ferry. Here two of the ferry’s engineers keep watch over navigation propelled by 36,000 hp in the engine room.

My favorite place in Amsterdam is the Rijksmuseum. The collection contains more than 2,000 paintings from the Dutch Golden Age by notable painters such as Jacob van Ruisdael, Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer, Jan Steen, de Hooch, Rembrandt, and Rembrandt's pupils. I took about 175 photos in the museum; I share a few of them here. The advantage of viewing the paintings in the museum is that each one is accompanied with a couple descriptive paragraphs about the work.

Sojourn 5: Lorraine, France- Land of my Forbearers

Sojourn 5: Lorraine, a department in northeastern France 

I cannot make a visit to northern France without passing by the Jantzi homestead near Bistroff in the Lorraine department of France. Lorraine was also the scene of some horrendous warfare during World War II. That war happened one hundred years after my ancestors, along with most of their community, had emigrated to Lewis County, New York. The emigration was motivated primarily out of a desire to live in a country where there sons would not be forced to participate in carnage such as this.

 

My hosts during these four days were Frieda Oesch and Christine Beck. I met Frieda probably 20 years ago through Mennonite Your Way connections. She lives in Diessen. Christine is from nearby Creutzwald and I met her in 2009 at Mennonite World Conference in Paraguay. She was at the conference last year in Harrisburg, where we started plans for this tour of France. Here on a sightseeing day out we stopping by a German ice cream shop to indulge in the goodies.

 

The Jantzi homestead near Bistroff. We are not sure how long the Amish community was in this area, but perhaps for 150 years. Here they were refugee peasants from Switzerland, eking out a hand to mouth existence, working for a wealthy landowner. In 1830’s the Amish community of Bistroff emigrated to northern New York state.

 All over northern France there are reminders of the tragedy and futility of war. Casualties of World War II, both civilian and military are at least 60 million. Near the village of Bistroff, in St. Avold there is a U.S. military cemetery where 10,500 U.S. soldiers are interred in 113 acres of neatly manicured lawns. It’s a place of hushed silence where visitors are encouraged to contemplate the lives and sacrifice of those who died for this noble (?) cause.  

 

A spacious memorial chapel on a knoll above the cemetery attempts to some how put together the incredible horrors of war with faith in God, patriotism and eternal life. At the front of the chapel above the altar with a cross is the body of a soldier, a war casualty ascending to heaven under the approving gaze of four patron saints of U.S. civil religion: King David, King Arthur, the Roman Emperor Constantine and George Washington. 

 

This engraving on one of the chapel walls is a concise statement of the myth of redemptive violence: These millions died so that, us who remain are, presumably, able to live in peace and freedom. For further comment please go to my essay-  Redemptive violence vs. Redemptive love  & grace found elsewhere in Gospel Feet.

Another grim reminder of the savagery of World War II is in a secluded woods near Creutzwald where the Nazis maintained a concentration camp for Ukrainian refugees during the German occupation of northern France 1939-44. Here at least 23,000 Ukrainians were slaughtered by the Nazis. The Nazi military who operated the camp lived in these, now decayed, substantial buildings, enjoying their exalted position of Aryan superiority.

This cemetery near Creutzwald has a walled-off plot that helps us understand why Mennonites have nurtured a separate and unique ethnicity: The Catholic state/church would not allow Anabaptists to be buried in the community cemetery but they did concede to granting them to be buried in an adjoining walled-off area.

Sojourn 4: Visit in Alsace & Lorraine, Northeastern France

Sojourn 4 brings me to Wissembourg, up in the northeast corner of France bordered by Germany. The focus of this sojourn is the Alsace region of France, an area rich in Anabaptist history and still the home of numerous Mennonite communities.

My host, Theo Hege, happily obliged to take me on a tour of a region about 40 miles southwest of Strasbourg that was once home to thriving Anabaptist/Amish communities during the 18th & 19th centuries. They were drawn to this area from Switzerland and Germany where they were free to practice their nonresistant faith. In fact, the Amish schism had its beginning here in 1693 in the town of Ste. Marie aux Mines. Among those Amish settlements a bit further west, was Bistroff, home of my maternal ancestors who along with hundreds of other Amish families in Alsace and Lorraine migrated to North America. Today there are only remnants and monuments of those communities. The most faithful and devout Amish migrated. Those who remained, for the most part eventually gave up Anabaptist connections and have been absorbed by the surrounding French culture. 

Theo & Suzy Hege. I have known
them for a few years and have had a great welcome in their home. Theo
chauffered me around on two tours in the Alsace-Lorraine area visiting
Mennonite historical sites and other points of interest.

Wissembourg, situated on the Lauter river, soon merging with the Rhine, is a typically modern European city with shopping centers, MacDonald’s and bars. But at it’s heart is the well preserved medieval town built around the cathedral, castle, grist mills and monastery, all enclosed  by defensive fortifications and moat. The photos below are scenes from within the ancient bourg where one can wander and imagine that the year is 1216 instead of 2016.   

 

This region, with a radius of 20 miles, is high in the mountain forests in secluded valleys. The Anabaptists found refuge from persecution and the freedom to live the stille im lande life they so much desired.

An oak tree planted by Anabaptist settlers some 300 years ago is the landmark for the Salm community.

 

A contemporary drawing of the interior of an Amish home with child asleep on a bed.

 

The Kupferschmitt farm in the Salm community. Kupferschmitt was a 17th century Amish leader.

 

The gravestone of Nicholas Augsburger, a Salm community leader, born Sept. 8, 1800; died April 4, 1890

 

A bucolic scene from across the Salm community

 

Ste. Marie aux Mines, birthplace of the Amish church has named one of it’s principal streets after it’s renown son: Jacob Amman, leader of the Amish schism. Quilts are the town’s claim to fame. Now the quilting capital of Europe, Ste. Marie aux Mines sponsors an annual quilt festival in September. The standing-only room crowd fills the town’s narrow streets, drawing quilt fans from around the world.

 

The region is home to a few small Mennonite communities. This is the chapel for the Mennonite community at Bourg-Burche

 

This same region, during the 1940’s has the tragic history of being the site of a Nazi concentration camp. The Stuthof camp claimed thousands of lives, most of them French citizens who resisted the German occupation of France.

 

A solid rock medieval burial coffin at the Cathedral abbey in Wissembourg. The well-being and preservation of the deceased has a major preoccupation of mankind throughout our history.

 

This obelisk, only a few hundred yards from the Geisberg Mennonite church, commemorates the five times the fields around the church have been a battlefield between France and Germany.

 

How can anyone observe this incredibly gorgeous, yet fragile, transitory creature and still say there is no Divine Creator? A butterfly grazing on a butterfly bush in Wissembourg, France.

 

Would you like a painting of a bowl of vegetables or the portrait of vegan?  You get both with this one by a noted Italian artist of the 18th century.