(Jewish Group) In Amsterdam, a Jewish merchant channels spirit of fabled pre-Holocaust flea market
his city’s fabled Jewish market, which opened in 1893 on Waterloo Square, came to a tragic end in the Holocaust, when the Nazis and their collaborators murdered nearly all the local Jews.
But the spirit of Waterloo Square, and the Jewish peddlers who once bought and sold odd lots in many cities, can still be found elsewhere in Amsterdam – if you know where to look.
Today, it dwells inside a tennis court-sized warehouse owned by a 41-year-old Jewish businessman named Gideon Italiaander, who started a successful chain of Dutch thrift stores. A high school dropout from a family traumatized by the Holocaust, Italiaander heads one of the Dutch capital’s most popular home design shops, which thrived during the COVID-19 pandemic largely because of donations by its loyal customer base.
At the warehouse on Haven Street, near where many of Amsterdam’s Jews currently live, a heavily Jewish clientele mingles with other low-budget shoppers for an experience in which business often takes a backseat to the pleasure of social interaction.
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