On the Water

For Anton happiness is concrete, tangible, made of ‘flesh, muscles, sun and wood, water and stones’. His rowing training with his Jewish friend David on the River Amstel, which flows through Amsterdam, also offers him a chance to escape the pressures of his parents’ wishes and his social background. In the long summer of 1939, as the city and the continent anxiously anticipate war, Anton and David live only for rowing and the independence it brings.