‘I said I wanted to buy it, but Berger obviously thought I couldn’t afford it. He looked at me like I wasn’t fit to be in his shop, which isn’t one of the better ones by the way, so I asked if I could leave a deposit mainly to give me an excuse to go back. I’ve got to have it, even if I have to pay his full price. I don’t care, I’ve just got to get it back.’
‘You won’t be paying for it, trust me, we’ll get it back without you giving him a cent. Did you find out anything else?’
‘You were absolutely right, I shouldn’t have spoken to him on my own. I really didn’t know what to say so I didn’t challenge him or accuse him or anything, but I did manage to get him to show me the watch father made for him. Seeing him with the watch felt worse than him having the painting. He even said a Jew made it for him in the war.’
‘We’ll get that back as well, don’t worry.’
‘It’s not just those things though, I want him to admit it was he who betrayed us, and I need him to tell me why. Of course he’ll never admit it and we’ll never prove it either.’
‘He will, he will, I’ll see to that.’
‘He gave me a month to pay the balance for the painting or he’ll put it back on sale.’
‘We’ll give him a visit before then. Now get off home and take this with you. Give it to Grietje Blok.’ Jos handed him a parcel wrapped in brown paper.
‘Whatever is it?’
‘Two bicycle tyres and two inner tubes for her bicycle, they’re still hard to find but these came from…’
‘A contact of yours.’
‘I thought it would help, she’ll be able to cycle to work instead of all that walking. She might even lend the bike to you at weekends.’
‘I’ve never ridden one, we always walked. I don’t know if I can do it.’
‘Bloody hell, you’re supposed to be an Amsterdammer and you can’t ride a bike?’
Simon walked slowly back to Slootstraat feeling strangely disillusioned rather than elated about finally meeting Berger face to face and desperately wishing Maaike was with him.
He let himself in and found a letter on the floor in the hall. Maaike had arrived safely and had written to him literally as soon as she had arrived at her aunt’s house. She was coming back on Monday as planned and needed him to meet her at Amersfoort station from the Zwolle train which was due to arrive at two thirty.
All thoughts and concerns about how he was going to approach Berger went out of his head and he went to bed a happy man. Maaike was safe and coming back and he resolved to talk to her about his plans for their future.
Friday 9th November 1945
He had hoped to hear something on Thursday from Abraham Hirschfeld about the gold purchase or perhaps from Jos about how they might approach Berger, but neither was forthcoming.
In the morning he’d visited City Hall at the Prinsenhof and presented himself, his old card and new photographs before the staff in the ID card section could disappear for lunch. They’d taken his details and material but were unable to issue a new ID card until his personal record had been located in the central registry at the Public Records Office on Plantage Kerklaan.
He’d thought about going past Berger’s shop again but realised there was no point so he’d walked back to Slootstraat for lunch after which, with time on his hands, he’d gone into work early.
On Friday morning, however, he was particularly busy. Grietje was due back but he didn’t know what time, and as he wanted to get some food in for her return he made his way to the shops very early.
When he got back he ate breakfast before enlisting the help of Aart, who was on his day off, to put the new tyres on Grietje’s bicycle as a surprise for her return. He’d never changed a tyre or even mended a puncture before, but Aart produced tyre levers and a pump and made short work of it. It transpired that the second tireless bicycle in the hall was Aart’s, and as part of the deal he promised to try to get him a set of tyres too so he could cycle to the tram depot again.
Simon had decided some days before that he would visit his old shul and in the hope that his personal record card had been retrieved, he called in at City Hall on the way. A bored front desk clerk told him it would take more time as some of the cards, which he assumed included those under the letter M, were still in a ‘state of disarray’ following an attempt by the resistance to burn them in 1943. It struck him that to take two years to reorganise, the staff in the Plantage Kerklaan office must be in a greater state of disarray than the cards they managed.
Leaving City Hall, he made his way via Nieuwmarkt to his old shul next to the diamond factory on Nieuwe Uilenburgerstraat. He resisted the temptation to walk through Dijkstraat; part of him had wanted to see his old home again, but realistically he knew there was no point. The shul was set back from the road and as he approached he saw to his surprise that the doors were open. An old man shuffled across the steps sweeping away fallen leaves, presumably in preparation for the prayer service that evening.
The man turned as he approached. ‘Goedemorgen, can I help?’
‘Shalom aleikhem.’
‘Aleikhem shalom, young man. What can I do for you?’
‘I just wanted to visit the shul again, my family worshipped here before the war.’
‘You’re a Jew then, I’m sorry I didn’t realise. I should have known when you greeted me. What is your family name?’
‘I’m Simon Mendelevski, my father was...’
‘Aviel Mendelevski, you’re Aviel Mendelevski’s son? The last time we met you were just a young boy.’
‘Hardly a young boy but yes, I have changed a little. I’m sorry but I don’t remember you.’
‘The war aged us all but welcome, welcome, and your father and mother?’
‘Both dead, and my sister Esther.’
The old man shook his head. ‘They’re all dead, there’s no one left. Our community is finished, all the young ones are gone. There is a service tonight if enough people attend for a minyan. Our shul was desecrated by the Nazis but it survived and thankfully most of our precious things like the torah were safely hidden away. But sadly, most of our congregation is dead. I was lucky, I was in Bergen-Belsen but I lived.’
‘We were in Auschwitz, I am the only survivor.’
‘Would you like to come inside?’
‘I don’t know, I have been non-observant now for three years and I am in love with a Gentile woman.’
‘Many find themselves in that position, but you are all still Jews, you must return to us, to this shul, you are wanted and needed. Come this evening or tomorrow, make up the minyan.’
Simon looked down at his feet in shame. ‘I work this evening and on the Sabbath.’
The old man was silent for a moment. ‘We all have to live. Please come inside for a moment, look around and remember. Your father was a reader here.’
‘That’s right, he was.’ He followed the old man through the doors, collecting a yarmulke from a basket in the hallway and covering his head for the first time in three years. All his memories returned as he saw the ark and the reader’s podium once occupied by his father. He turned and hurried back into the hallway.
‘I’m sorry, it’s all too much for me.’
‘I understand but please, come back to us, we are all your family and we need you. I fear our shul will close forever.’
He walked slowly back to the Jordaan, making a diversion along Rapenburgerstraat past the Ashkenazi Seminary, where he had studied until late 1941, the Rapenburger Shul next door and the Ashkenazi Girls’ Orphanage. All were standing but in a poor state of repair and deserted, their pupils and congregation gone, he assumed, forever. He was lost in deep thought about his own shul, his community, such as it now was, his culture and his religion. He knew that he must return and that he could never, and must never, allow that which had killed his family to ruin his life and separate him from Judaism. Quite how and when he would be ready and able to return he didn’t know, and much depended on Maaike being part of it
.
He got back to Slootstraat at about one and heard Grietje in the kitchen.
‘Simon, is that you?’
‘Grietje, welcome home! Where’s Irene?’
‘Still in Utrecht, she wanted to stay a little longer with her Oma and Opa. I had to come back to work but I’m going there again next Saturday and bringing her home on Sunday.’
‘Did you both have a nice time?’
‘Irene certainly did, they spoiled her terribly. Thank you for getting the shopping by the way. I hope you had enough to eat while I was away, there was no Maaike here either to feed you. Did she get to her aunt’s safely?’
‘She did. She’s back on Monday as planned. I’ll go to the market for the rest of the shopping tomorrow as you’re working. Now, didn’t you see your surprise?’
‘What surprise?’
‘You walked past it. Go and look in the hall.’
‘Simon! Simon!’ She almost screamed. ‘How did you get them, how did you do it? Thank you, thank you so much.’ She started to kiss him profusely.
‘Don’t thank me, thank Jos, and old Aart upstairs as well, he fitted them. I had no idea how to do it.’
She clapped her hands with joy like a small girl. ‘It’s wonderful, I can cycle to work, to the shops to…well, everywhere again in fact, I think I’ll cycle this afternoon when I take the washing.’
‘Take it easy to start with,’ he joked. ‘You might be out of practice.’
‘Now, tell me what you have been up to while I’ve been away.’
‘Nothing very much. All very boring, ordinary things really. I went to the dentist and the Jewish Co-ordination Committee, and tried to sort out my ID.’
‘Nothing very exciting then?’
His face broke into a grin. ‘I’m kidding you. Something absolutely amazing has happened, although I don’t know what to do next. I saw him again, I saw Berger, he was leaving the house of the lawyer I told you about.’
‘Go on then, don’t keep me in suspense.’
‘I asked the lawyer about him and he told me where his shop was and I found it. It’s on Nieuwe Spiegelstraat and I found him there too, and guess what? That painting, the one of the girl in the gilt frame, you know it, the one that goes with the matching one of the boy, remember, you told me that you helped father pack them in Peperstraat. There it was, in his window. Now I absolutely know he is the one, he betrayed us then somehow he got hold of the painting. He tried to tell me he bought the painting from a woman, but I just know he was lying.’
She said nothing and hurriedly looked away, her mind reeling at the mention of the painting.
‘What do you think? You don’t seem very pleased for me. I’ve found the man who betrayed us. Jos is thinking of a way to get him to admit it and get the painting back. Berger is trying to sell it for a hundred and twenty guilders.’
She sounded shocked. ‘A hundred and twenty?’
‘Yes, why do you ask?’
‘No reason. It just sounds a lot, that’s all.’ She changed the subject. ‘Now what do you want for lunch? It’s getting late and you have to be at work at four, don’t you?’
Jos motioned to him to go down to the cellar as soon as he walked in. His wife was behind the bar and, seeing them disappear down the steps, unleashed her usual barrage of anger.
‘Don’t you two lazy sods hide away down there. The kid is here to work, and you can take over from me, Jos van Loon.’
He called up to his wife. ‘I’m just changing the barrel, dearest, and Simon is getting his apron.’
He put his finger to his lips and whispered, ‘Hirschfeld’s man has been in, that big fellow who was here with him before. He wants to meet us and discuss the deal on Sunday. I suppose tomorrow was out as it’s the old man’s Sabbath but it suits us best anyway as we’re closed on Sunday and it’s your day off. The main thing is he wants to meet here so we won’t have to take the gold to his place. Is that alright with you? Ten thirty in the morning?’
‘That’s fine by me.’
‘I’ll find out the latest price per gram from my friend tomorrow so we’re right up to date. The price is quoted in US dollars, so I imagine that’s what Hirschfeld will use.’
‘You mean he’ll pay me in dollars?’
‘I really don’t know, it’s obvious he’s had to get at least one other person in to help finance things, that’s why it’s taken him a week to get back to us, but I don’t know if he’ll actually pay and take the gold on Sunday. I suspect he may just want to weigh the bulk, do the calculations, and make you an offer.’
‘What am I going to do if he pays in cash of any currency?’
‘I don’t know, but get yourself a bank account when you get your new ID card, open it with a couple of hundred guilders, which should be alright, and we’ll go from there.’
‘I’ll do it on Monday first thing before I go to meet Maaike.’
‘Good, the place has been awful since she went away. The regulars are miserable and I’m working too damn hard. I can’t wait to have her back.’
Sunday 11th November 1945
He was at the bar by ten fifteen, soaked to the skin in the pouring rain. He knocked and Jos let him in almost immediately.
‘Good morning, hell you’re wet, come in and get that coat off. I’ll make coffee. Keep as quiet as you can, I don’t want her upstairs waking up and poking her nose in.’
He heard a car and looked out of the window to see Hirschfeld and his burly friend getting out of a huge maroon Mercedes-Benz saloon with a uniformed driver. The two men hurried across the pavement and approached the door, Hirschfeld with his old leather satchel and his colleague carrying a large wooden box.
He opened the door before they could knock and drew the heavy curtain across the door behind them just as Jos re-appeared with coffee.
Hirschfeld spoke first. ‘Shalom aleikhem Simon, goedemorgen Meneer van Loon.’
‘Aleikhem shalom Meneer Hirschfeld, goedemorgen Joost.’
Joost remained silent as usual, busying himself opening the wooden box and setting up a large pair of scales while Jos served coffee.
‘To business. All I want to do today is get the gross weight of your coins and the watch cases, calculate the weight of gold, and apply the current price, which I am sure Meneer van Loon has already checked for you, to arrive at a total on which I hope we can both agree. You must appreciate Simon that the price of gold can go down as well as up and therefore my offer may not exactly match the final total of our calculation.’
Jos gave him a sideways ‘I told you so’ glance before opening his mouth to say something which would undoubtedly have offended the old Jew.
Simon spoke first, cleverly keeping the peace between them. ‘Of course, we understand, don’t we, Jos?’
Jos mumbled his agreement and poured the coffee before retrieving the two bags of gold coins and the watch cases from behind the bar where he had put them prior to Hirschfeld’s arrival.
The old man closely examined the wax seals on the tapes securing the two bags before he broke them and opened the bags.
‘Have you got your lists?’
Jos produced his and Joost took the other one from Hirschfeld’s leather satchel.
‘You recall that I told you that both the twenties and the tens were ninety percent gold.’
Jos nodded. ‘I checked on that, it’s correct.’
‘So I can weigh both together. Agreed?’
Hirschfeld poured the contents of the first bag onto one pan of the scale and placed a one kilogram weight, after showing it to him and Jos, on the other pan. He then added more coins from the second bag until the scales balanced.
‘We have one kilo gross weight so far. Are we agreed? If so, please note it on your respective lists.’
After emptying the first pan Hirschfeld poured the remaining coins into it, changing to a selection of smaller weights. The scales balanced at a weight of 965 grams.
After showing the weights to him and Jos, Hirschfe
ld asked, ‘Are we agreed on that, gentlemen? 965 grams?’
Both nodded and each made a note.
‘So, if my old brain still works and my mathematics are correct, we have 1965 grams gross weight. Yes?’
Jos wrote the figure down.
‘Now for the complicated bit, the calculations. The gold content is ninety percent, so ninety percent of 1,965 is…’
Jos started frantically scribbling, shook his head in despair and quickly handed the paper over to Simon. Moments before he could complete his calculations, without even writing anything down, Hirschfeld announced the total.
‘I make it 1,768.5 grams. You’re going to be a very rich boy, Simon.’
‘Absolutely correct,’ Jos laughed. ‘Just what I was going to say, but you were too quick for me.’
‘Now to the difficult part. We have to apply the price per ounce not per gram, as that is how it is quoted on the market. Also, as you will know from your checks, the market price per ounce is quoted in US dollars. Now, Meneer van Loon, let’s hope we both have the same rate.’
‘I was told the rate was thirty-seven and a quarter dollars an ounce.’
‘I have thirty-seven dollars and fifteen cents but we’ll use your rate, I hope we’re not going to argue over ten US cents an ounce.’ The old Jew stroked his beard and smiled at Jos, clearly humouring him.
‘But first we have to change grams to ounces, how do we do that?’ wondered Simon. ‘I don’t know the rate. I’ve never heard of ounces.’
‘Fortunately, I do know,’ said Abe and took a chart from his bag. ‘Thanks to this I can tell you that 1768.5 grams is equal to roughly sixty-two and a half ounces.’
Jos looked uncomfortable. ‘Roughly? How do we know that’s right?’
‘Please check it for yourself, look at the chart if you don’t believe me. I’ll give you the conversion rate if you want to work it out for yourself.’ He handed Jos a pencil.
Simon quickly covered both Jos’s embarrassment and Hirschfeld’s rising anger. ‘That won’t be necessary, I accept your figure is correct.’
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