Say Cheese

A trip to the charming town of Gouda leads to a philosophical exploration of the scars left by the Holocaust.

Apartment hunting in The Netherlands is an adventure, to say the least. If you read about it online, it sounds like non-stop madness riddled with scammers, false hopes, and broken dreams.

So far, it’s only a little bit like that.

If I’m being honest, it doesn’t feel all that different from the American real estate market. The first time we bought a house, we were unprepared for the ups and downs: we had an accepted offer that fell apart after the inspection revealed the oven and two of the stove burners weren’t working properly and the seller suggested we could get by with two and a microwave. We’d already given notice in our apartment and I started eating frosting out of a can…

We found our eventual home and closed on it within a month, and it was a far better option than the first would have been. Note to self: sometimes life has a way of working itself out, as long as you can ride the bumps to the calm beyond them. We sold that home in the summer of 2020 and it went from listed to under offer in under 48 hours…not unlike some of the listings we have seen for apartments here in The Netherlands.

We’ve been scouring the available options each day, paring them down by which ones are furnished (with everything from towels and silverware down to the actual furniture), which ones are upholstered (with flooring, lighting, curtains, and appliances), and which ones come as bare bones (exactly as you might imagine and an explanation for Ikea’s business model). Not wanting to invest in everything right out of the gate, we’ve been looking at furnished and upholstered, though we have found two cats is a strange proposition when considering renting someone else’s couch.

We’ve also been so preoccupied with the appointments and business of moving and beginning to live here that we’ve not had much of a chance to be tourists in our new country. In my youth, I was a “Super Tourist,” who could pack an agenda chock full of stuff that would keep you moving from beginning to end. As life has taught me the joy of moving with purpose, William and my trips abroad previously settled into a more comfortable pattern of picking a sight or two each day and using the rest of the time to explore the vicinity.

You never know what you’ll find down that narrow alley…

We’ve been walking a lot in Rotterdam on the search for everyday essentials which means we’re “seeing things” but more by accident and not through the lens of “suck up every drop before the magic is gone” that usually accompanies exploring a new place. We’ve made several visits to each of the four corners of Den Haag, where we’re hoping to settle, and have yet to visit some of the more impressive sights…I wonder if we can consider ourselves Dutch residents until we’ve seen Girl With A Pearl Earring?

When you moved to a new place, did you spend a week being a tourist or did you start immediately on the business of living?

I grew up in Minnesota and have had many people ask me about common sights that I’ve never seen (my Pilates bestie must have asked me five times if I’ve ever visited Mpls’ North Loop…and the answer was always nope). I lived in Oklahoma and I never made a proper visit to the bombing memorial. In New Hampshire, we never saw the inside of the Frank Lloyd Wright designed home that’s part of the city’s art museum. In fact, I don’t know that I would’ve seen any of the sights in places I’ve lived if it weren’t for people who visited me and wanted to explore (thanks for the visits, Mom and Mum-in-law).

But this time, we’re not tourists; we’re immigrants.

Today, we used the excuse of viewing an apartment to take a visit to Gouda. About a half hour train ride from Rotterdam, the namesake bacterial process is likely familiar and I remembered reading in my guide book about its being a nice day trip. We didn’t really think we wanted to move there, but it did seem like a nice respite from the gauntlet of showings and mapping possible commutes or proximity to pet shops, etc.

Gouda's Markt and Stadhuis

Even a drizzly day couldn’t mask the town’s charm.

Looking good for seven hundred and fifty!

The apartment itself was a modern marvel with floating spaces looking down on an open living area. Truly unique and absolutely the kind of place we wish we could say we lived in…without having to actually live there. I got a little woozy on the catwalks and couldn’t imagine walking them in the dark of night, to say nothing of doing so with a real cat underfoot.

There was also a very strange choice of having the shower encased in glass walls suspended in more or less the middle of the room. Yes, the glass was frosted—although with a spattering of brown and green that was more petrie dish than pleasant—but still…

Making our way to the listing and then for a little “wandeling,” we didn’t visit Gouda’s museum or go inside the church, but I noticed something on the sidewalk that caught my attention. I’d seen a couple that looked similar in Rotterdam, but never as many as I saw today, nor had I stopped to examine one.

A moment later, I was nearly in tears.

Each of these plaques identify a person who was ripped from their home, deported from their country of residence (if not origin), and, in most cases, bears the date and location of their murder in a Nazi concentration camp. On a small segment of the block, there were easily thirty…and that’s one block of one street in one city.

I can’t change what happened to the millions who are memorialized in this way, but I can remember that it did. I can’t undo the horrors they suffered, but I can talk about how easily it can happen again if we don’t pay attention and speak out against the rising tide of intolerance and hatred.

I can also marvel in a culture that honors those lives and losses so completely.

Not only were each of the names recorded along with the port through which they were ejected, but their places of residence were noted and memorials placed in front of each of the doors from which they were pulled, forever denoting the homes that were broken by hatred. Writing this now, I’m weeping for the fact that their lives were stolen and for the cruelties they must have endured. Thinking of them as individuals, with names and homes and lives and loves, it is even more sorrowful to imagine their individual pain than when we hear the shockingly large numbers.

Entire families and histories reduced to a sobering reminder on the street, but their names recorded all the same.

Returning to Rotterdam after our stroll through Gouda, I was even more moved by the sight of the statue that stands proudly on Kruisplein (in the Cool district). Entitled “ongebroken verzet” (unbroken resistance), it captures the sorrowful pride of standing tall in the face of horrific losses and the Nazi occupation that devastated the country—and Rotterdam specifically—less than one hundred years ago.

It also serves to remind me why we chose this place, in this time.

As part of the Dutch apartment rental process, we were encouraged to write a letter of motivation, explaining a bit about who we are and what drew us here. Most of the process leans heavily on proving that you are financially stable enough to keep paying the rent, a response to the scales that are tipped towards tenants rights (!?!?), but we wanted to make our position clear:

Being aligned with the Dutch values of equality and tolerance, our motivations are simple: we came to The Netherlands because we wanted a different life. We want to integrate into our neighborhood, building connections that will help establish us in our new country.

I realize I left, but I still do believe there is much worth fighting for in the United States. The trouble was that, as a gay man, I didn’t want to spend any more of my short life trying to convince people that I deserve to exist. I spent enough of it thinking those thoughts myself. I was in my forties before I could legally not be fired from a job for who I love, something that the Supreme(ly Corrupted) Court is likely to take aim at because it is seemingly more important to protect a bigot’s feelings over my fundamental rights.

I am not naive and understand that there is a right anywhere there is a left. Like everything, ideologies exist in opposition. Thus, I am well aware that the current far-right government in The Netherlands is doing its best to vilify immigrants and sow seeds of discontent.

Because of how often it is used as a code for racist perceptions, William and I may not “look like” what one “expects” when they hear the word “immigrant” but that is exactly what we are: two people who stepped away from everything and everyone we’ve known and loved to try to become a part of a different society, to build ourselves a new future.

For every door at which we knock, I’m newly touched by the warm welcome we’ve received. For each frighteningly narrow stair we’ve ascended, I’m reminded how fortunate we are to be able to make this move, to see these apartments, and to make this kind of change for ourselves.

For each of the plaques we pass, I will take note and acknowledge a life lost that mine might be lived.

As we approach a month in The Netherlands, the reality of our staying here is settling in and I like what I see. People help one another on the street. Yesterday, an older woman and I joked on the tram about William’s lack of proper cold weather attire.

While I’m sure there are bigots here too, there are rainbows on the crosswalks and pride flags hanging alongside the state ones atop the government buildings and I don’t feel uncomfortable holding William’s hand in public the way I did in the United States. We may have many struggles as immigrants in this country, but one of the most comforting parts has been that at least we’re seen non-negotiably as human.

What’s more, they have entire towns dedicated to cheese—a fact my sister-in-law and niece would consider leaving home for, I’m sure. You see, in the US, they keep surplus cheese in caves (seriously, it’s wild). That said, for all that I am celebrating about this new country, I am dismayed to report that at our charming lunch spot in the center of Gouda, my entree was served with…cheddar!

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