Portuguese Synagogue and the Dock Worker
Why is it significant?
In front of you rises a massive brick building, plain and almost severe from outside, with tall arched windows: the Portuguese Synagogue, the Esnoga. When it was inaugurated in 1675, it was one of the largest synagogues in the world, and Amsterdam's visitors came to gape at it.
Key Facts
| Place | Portuguese Synagogue and the Dock Worker |
|---|---|
| Address | Mr. Visserplein 3, 1011 RD Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.36750, 4.90540 |
| Part of Walk | Mokum's Lost Quarter: The Jewish Heart of Amsterdam and the Plantage |
| Generated | Generated |
In front of you rises a massive brick building, plain and almost severe from outside, with tall arched windows: the Portuguese Synagogue, the Esnoga. When it was inaugurated in 1675, it was one of the largest synagogues in the world, and Amsterdam's visitors came to gape at it.
It was built by the Sephardim, the descendants of Jews from Spain and Portugal who had fled the Inquisition and found in Amsterdam a place to live openly. They were merchants, doctors and printers, and they built big. Inside, there is still no electric light. For services the great brass chandeliers are lit with hundreds of candles, and the floor is covered in fine sand, which absorbs dust and moisture and muffles footsteps. Some like to say it also recalls the secret worship of their ancestors, or the desert of Exodus. In the side buildings is the Ets Haim library, founded in 1616 and one of the oldest Jewish libraries still in use anywhere.
Now turn round and look across the square at the statue of a broad-shouldered man in work clothes, the Dokwerker, the Dock Worker, by Mari Andriessen. On the twenty-second and twenty-third of February 1941, German police sealed off this area and rounded up 425 young Jewish men, beating them as they herded them together on this very square. They were deported to Buchenwald and then Mauthausen. Almost none survived.
Amsterdam answered. On the twenty-fifth of February the city went on strike: tram drivers, dockers, shipyard and factory workers, office staff, tens of thousands of people. It was the first and largest open protest against the persecution of the Jews in occupied Europe, and it was crushed within two days.
Every year on the twenty-fifth of February, people gather around the Dock Worker to remember. Now walk back along the square to the other great synagogue complex, on the corner of the Nieuwe Amstelstraat.