Jood

Dear Baby,

Your father and I just returned from a trip to Amsterdam in The Netherlands. We spent some time during the first few days in the Joods Historich Museum (Jewish Historical Museuem). Your father wanted to follow the path of the exiled Jews (whose path we traced in Portugal earlier this year) to Holland.

While the museum was interesting, the single display that moved me the most was a bolt of cloth imprinted with Jewish stars. While I've seen dozens of documentaries and movies featuring the star worn by many European Jews during World War II, I never thought about them as a commodity.

But they were. And Jews had to buy them for four cents each to be sewn on the clothes of adults and children over six. They were manufactured in different languages depending on the country of origin. In Dutch, it was Jood.

This is one story I don't relish having to share with you. But I will.

Love,

Dear Mama