A popular Amsterdam crockery company has been forced to withdraw a coffee bowl depicting a grinning, rosy-cheeked Anne Frank, clutching her diary, along with other symbols of “Dutch glory” such as clogs, tulips and windmills.
The kitsch mug showed the Holocaust victim looking cheery while surrounded by Dutch archetypes including Sinterklaas (Santa Claus), ice skates and the nation’s sickly desserts: vlaflip, a syrupy custard and hagelslag, chocolate sprinkles.
After widespread outrage over the bowl, entitled Hollands Glorie, which had been stocked in the country’s biggest supermarket chain Albert Heijn and tourist shops in the capital, the manufacturer Blond Amsterdam pulled it from sale.
“We were dumbfounded,” said Aron Vrieler, of Israel’s Information and Documentation Centre (CIDI). “A cheerful picture of Anne Frank on a coffee
