Grote Markt - Haarlem

Our next stop in Haarlem was the Grote Markt (Great Market), the main square in Haarlem.



Haarlem's Town Hall.




Stores and cafes in the square.





The Grote Kerk (Great Church)







We enjoyed the beautiful weather at an outdoor cafe in the square. Jagger had some Dutch pancakes (poffertjies) with powdered sugar. When he was finished he enjoyed feeding his left-overs to the pigeons!


While we realaxed in the square and enjoyed our day, we couldn't help thinking about where we were sitting. The square was a round-up point for the Jews being carted off to the "work camps" (the Germans originally took the Dutch Jews off to a camp in northern Holland called "Westerbok". Here the Jews were required to make military uniforms and equiptment to aid the Germans in exterminating Jews. Later, the Jews were taken directly to concentration camps in Germany.) The trucks would sit there in the square while the German guards went house to house to round up the Jews and bring them back to this central point. It's impossible to imagine what was going through the minds of these helpless people as they sat there waiting for their truck to fill...