Few theaters have had a history of such highs and lows. It was opened as the Artis Theatre in 1892 and became a hub of cultural life in Amsterdam, staging major dramas and operettas. In WWII the occupying Germans turned it into a Jews-only theater, and later, horrifyingly, a detention center for Jews held for deportation.
The occupiers processed up to 80,000 Jews here on their way to the death camps. Glass panels are engraved with the names of all Jewish families deported, and there is a memorial garden.
