The Oase

We are standing on the spot where De Oase once stood, at Geleenstraat 1 in Amsterdam South. During the war, it was a popular lunchroom and ice-cream parlor where Jewish residents were still allowed to go. People came for coffee, lemonade and a brief chat – a rare moment of ease in an increasingly hostile city.

For the Frank family, life was changing rapidly. Step by step, anti-Jewish measures restricted their freedom. Jewish children could no longer attend regular schools and had to go to separate Jewish institutions with only Jewish teachers. In Amsterdam, it was not the Jewish Council but the city’s Department of Education that carried out this segregation. Leisure was also restricted. In September 1941 Jews were banned from sports clubs. For Margot Frank, Anne’s older sister, it meant she had to leave her rowing club. In those years, De Oase offered a fleeting sense of normal life in an ever-tightening world.