Waterlooplein walking tour
This page is part of the walking route around the Waterlooplein, in the former Jewish neighbourhood of Amsterdam. The route is part of the exhibition Waterlooplein. The neighborhood inside out. Below you can see and hear the corresponding story for each point, told by our tour guide Ieke Rottenberg-Spiekman. Don't have the roadmap yet? Then you can download it [Dutch version] here. Have fun!
1. Boys’ orphanage [English subtitles]
The line on the ground indicates the contours of the Jewish boys' orphanage that stood here. In the building was a school where the boys were taught. Every day they did morning gymnastics on the roof.
2. Spinoza [English subtitles]
This is the statue of Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677), the famous philosopher who grew up nearby. He was raised Jewish but expelled from the Jewish community at the age of 24. Why actually?
3. Vanished street [English subtitles]
The Joden Houttuinen and Jodenbreestraat were two narrow streets until the mid-1960s. Only one house of the Joden Houttuinen remains - the Goslerhuisje, now Café de Sluyswacht.
4. Fish stall of Cheeky Coba [English subtitles]
On this corner stood the well-known fish seller Rachel Moffie (1874-1943) who was called Cheeky Coba. The story goes that she blew up her fish with a straw to make it look fresher.
5. Music Theatre and the City Hall [English subtitles]
The construction of the City Hall Music Theater in 1980 sparked many protests. At first there was a residential area here, where many Jews lived before the war.
6. Market [English subtitles]
Rags, scrap iron, shoes, toothpaste or fresh fish… there was a buyer for everything on Waterlooplein. Men and women, young and old, Jewish and not Jewish, sold their wares here.
7. Fence [English subtitles]
A large construction site full of deposits and fences, this is how this neighborhood looked in the early 1980s. Artist Hugo Kaagman painted a hundred-meter-long fence that stood here at the former metro exit.
8. Jewish Historical Museum [English subtitles]
Visit the exhibition Waterlooplein. The neighborhood inside out in the Jewish Historical Museum. Until the 13th of June, 2021.
