by Lynn Austin
“Who owns this farm where you live?”
“The Dykstras. I work there as a maid.”
“Yet you came to Woerden instead of going home?”
“I couldn’t walk home in the dark.”
“Who were you going to stay with?”
“I-I didn’t know. We bring milk to a dairy here. They know me. I-I thought maybe with them.” That much was also true. The Gestapo could check with the dairyman. Ans had avoided giving any names or addresses of her underground contacts or safe houses. “I would have been home on time if they hadn’t stolen my bike!”
She tried to read his expression through her tears but couldn’t. He didn’t look menacing, but he didn’t look kind, either. Then he smiled and her blood ran cold. “That is a very nice story, but you see, Bernandina, I don’t believe you.”
“But it’s true! My bike—”
“Yes, perhaps your bicycle was taken. But I’ve never heard of a dairymaid who rides such great distances in the middle of a war unless she is up to something more than buying shoes.”
“It was my day off . . .”
“Don’t insult me.” His smile was gone now. “You are in a great deal of trouble, and I would like to help you because you are very pretty. And because I think you are only a minnow.”
Ans shivered at the mention of her code name, Minnow. Was it merely a coincidence, a figure of speech? Or did he know more about her?
“I can help you, Bernandina, but you must help me catch some bigger fish.”
“I don’t understand—”
“I think you do. Why don’t you start by telling me your real name?”
“That is my real name. Some people call me Dina—”
“Is that what your boyfriend calls you?”
“I-I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Now, I know that’s a lie. A girl as pretty as you must surely have a boyfriend.”
“But all the young men my age were taken away—”
“Tell me who you’re working for.” His tone was becoming harsher, angrier.
“The Dykstras—”
“Who gave you the bicycle and sent you to Bodegraven?” He stepped closer. “What did you really do there? Who did you contact?”
“Nobody! I needed shoes!”
She started to tremble, terrified of the torture Erik had warned about. The room was hot, the coarse prison dress scratchy. She started to cover her face as her tears fell, but the officer shouted at her. “Look at me!”
Ans lowered her hands. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Tell me where you are from, innocent farm maid. Where is your family?”
Ans had thought this through in the brief time she’d spent in her jail cell. Any answers she gave could be checked—and probably would be. She didn’t want to put anyone she loved in danger, so she had decided on a story that couldn’t be verified easily and hoped she could fabricate enough details to make it believable.
“The Dutch East Indies. Bandung, on Java. I came to the Netherlands to work as a housemaid, but then the war started and the only work I could find was on a farm.” He studied her face. Ans struggled to recall the details Erik had told her about Java, all of the photographs they’d looked at together. She hoped she was a convincing liar.
“What do you miss most about home?” he asked. His cruel smile was back.
“The food,” she replied without hesitating. “The wonderful spices.” She named some of the dishes Erik had taught her to make, and his smile vanished.
“Stop. I’m going to give you one last chance to help yourself, Bernandina, and then it will be too late. You must stop this game of lies you are playing and tell me the truth about why you went to Bodegraven. Tell me the names of the people you’re working for, and I’ll see that you’re given a nice bed in the prison in Vught and special treatment there. Because you will be going to Vught for breaking curfew, I promise you. Why not make it easier on yourself?”
“I am telling the truth. I work for the Dykstras. I went to buy shoes.”
“Then heaven help you, because I can’t.” He yanked her to her feet and opened the door, then pulled her back into the office. “She wouldn’t break,” he told one of the other Gestapo men in German.
“Shall I work on her?” the man asked. Ans closed her eyes, praying that she would hold up, that she wouldn’t betray anyone.
“For now, her only crime is breaking curfew,” the first officer replied. “She had nothing incriminating on her. I had a hunch that she wasn’t telling the whole truth, but it was only that. We need to look for cracks in her story first. Put her in a cell.”
A guard led her down a corridor in a cellblock that reeked of urine and unwashed bodies and unlocked a door. Her cell was only ten feet by seven feet and already held four women who were asleep on the floor on straw mattresses. They grumbled as they moved aside to make room for Ans. She could smell the bucket in the corner that served as a latrine and stepped carefully over the other women to use it as they settled back to sleep. The only light came from a high window that faced the corridor.
Ans was desperately thirsty. She stepped over the women again to reach a metal water pitcher and tin cups near the door, but the pitcher was empty. The guard hadn’t given her a mattress, but Ans knew she wouldn’t sleep anyway. She sat down with her back against the wall, wrapped her arms around her bent knees, and tried to pray.
She had much to be thankful for—that her bag had been empty of ration books, that she’d been able to flush the map down the toilet, that she’d known details about Java from Erik. Most of all, she was thankful they hadn’t tortured her. But her ordeal wasn’t over. Her false ID would be checked, Woerden’s dairyman questioned. Thankfully, she had warned the Dykstras that if anything happened to her, they were to say she’d been given the day off. She imagined the Gestapo arriving at their farm and prayed with all her heart that the Jewish boys hidden there wouldn’t be discovered.
Ans finally dozed off, still leaning against the cold wall, praying for all the people she loved.
CHAPTER 49
An army truck with a canvas roof pulled up in front of Meijers House. Miriam was shoved into the back of it, clutching her suitcase with her violin inside. After five years of running and hiding, after everything she and Papa and Avi had endured, Miriam’s enemies had captured her at last. It had all been for nothing. Avi had begged her to live, to fight to survive. But she’d reached the end of the road. She would never see him or their daughter again.
As she’d waited for the truck to arrive, Miriam heard the Nazis saying that she and Klara and Tina would be taken to Westerbork, then deported to a slave labor camp. Miss Hannie and Miss Willy were being arrested for hiding Jews. Poor, simple Frits, who had no idea what was happening to him and to the only home he’d ever known, would be imprisoned along with them. One of the soldiers had slapped him across the face when he wouldn’t stop shouting, and he was still crying hours later.
Klara and Tina seemed dazed as they climbed into the back of the truck with Miriam. Miss Hannie and Miss Willy came in after them, needing help to get over the high fender. Miss Hannie tried to comfort Frits as they huddled together on the hard floor. The truck started up and they began the painful, jolting ride toward the unknown. A soldier with a rifle rode with them, presumably to keep them from leaping out. Miriam watched villages and farmland go past through the canvas flap in the back of the truck until the sun finally set and the sky became too dark to see.
The sisters and Frits were ordered out when the truck finally drew to a halt. Miriam, Klara, and Tina were told to remain inside. Miriam reached for Miss Hannie’s hand. “Thank you for helping me. I’m so sorry you’re paying such a high price for your kindness.”
Miss Hannie squeezed her hand in return. “This isn’t your fault, Christina. Lord knows, you’re the innocent ones.”
Soldiers with guns and bayonets stood guard as the trio climbed out. Dogs barked nearby, scaring Frits. He began to shout, adding to the commotion.
Miriam wept for her friends. She wondered if she would ever see them again. An hour passed. Miriam stood while she waited, her backside aching from the hard truck bed.
At last, she heard guards shouting and children crying. The flap opened and the soldiers herded a line of people into the truck—elderly people, children, men and women, all carrying suitcases. Miriam sat down again, knowing she wouldn’t be able to stand once the truck began to move. She watched as each person boarded, knowing without being told that they were Jewish, hoping that one of them wouldn’t be Avi, thanking God that none of the crying children was Elisheva. As difficult as it had been to let her daughter go, she had done the right thing. The guards pushed people into the truck until there was no more room. Then they pushed more people in. Families sat on their suitcases and on each other’s laps.
“Do you know where this truck is going?” an old man seated beside Miriam asked.
“Westerbork, the Dutch prison camp. I heard the Nazis talking about it after they found us hiding.”
“They found us, too,” he said. He looked weary and defeated, as if he’d lost the will to fight. Papa had looked the same as he’d said goodbye to Miriam.
The truck traveled all night, arriving at Westerbork just after dawn. Miriam’s legs ached from being stuffed beneath her for so long. The camp had become huge since Miriam had left with Abba. She’d been filled with hope for a new life in Leiden, filled with wonder and love for Avi. The surrounding heathland that Miriam had stared at for so many months looked the same, but the sprawling camp was a true prison now, with tall barbed-wire fences and seven watchtowers guarded by soldiers with machine guns. Rows and rows of new barracks spread across the grounds.
Miriam stayed close to Klara and Tina as guards marched them forward and forced them to stand in a large, open area in the middle of the camp. They stood waiting for a very long time, not daring to sit down. Miriam’s stomach rumbled with hunger and nerves. They had run out of food three days ago in the attic of Meijers House and hadn’t eaten since. But worse than her hunger was her thirst.
It took all morning for the truckload of new prisoners to be processed, their names and ages recorded. Miriam’s ID card still identified her as Christina Bos, but her accent betrayed her as a German Jew. The knowledge that they’d recaptured one of their own seemed to please her jailers. “All Jews who were discovered in hiding will be housed in the punishment block—a prison within this prison,” they were told. “You will be treated as convicts for breaking the law and failing to report for relocation as you were ordered to do. You will be among the first to be deported to the labor camps.”
Miriam was assigned to the punishment barracks with Klara and Tina. They had barely spoken to her all day, and she wondered if they blamed her for being discovered. If it hadn’t been for Rietje’s screams, the Nazis might not have searched the attic. And yet, with no way out, all three of them would have surely starved to death. Would that have been a worse fate than what they now faced?
Miriam carried her suitcase with the violin tucked inside into the crowded barracks and searched for an empty bunk. They were stacked three high and crammed into the barracks so tightly, there was barely space to walk between the rows. The barracks supervisor located a bunk for Miriam in the densely packed middle, up near the rafters where wet laundry draped above her head. She would have no privacy, no way to be alone. “What happens to us now?” she asked the supervisor.
“The deportation train leaves every Tuesday,” she replied. “The authorities will give me a list of names from this barracks, and if yours is on it, you leave.” Today was Sunday. The train departed in two days.
“Do you know where the train ends up?” Miriam asked.
The woman looked all around for a moment as if worried someone would overhear. “They say we’re all going to resettlement camps somewhere in Poland. But nobody ever writes back to tell us they’ve arrived. They promise they will, but then they board the train when their names are called and we never hear from them again.” Her words made Miriam shudder. She’d heard nothing from Papa or any of her relatives in Cologne.
“Has anyone ever tried to escape?” she asked. She was thinking of Avi and how he’d escaped from Westerbork once before. If they had captured him and brought him here, perhaps he might have escaped a second time.
“A few have tried it. But every time someone attempts to escape, ten other people from that barracks are deported in retaliation.” Avi would never endanger his fellow prisoners that way.
Prisoners in the other barracks labored in a workshop where they made shoes or in a scrapyard where aircraft wrecks were disassembled for parts. Prisoners in the punishment block wouldn’t be in camp long enough to work.
The food that evening tasted wonderful to Miriam, the first she’d eaten in three days. She remembered the Sabbath dinners with Abba and Avi and how thankful and hopeful they’d felt as they’d recited the traditional blessings and prayers. Now Miriam knew this was the end for her. She would never see Avi and Elisheva again. If they survived, they would have no way of learning what had happened to her.
That night, after lights-out, Miriam sat up on her bunk, her head brushing the rafters, and took out her violin. It was the only thing that remained of herself and of the life she’d once lived, and she wanted to play it one last time. She played it muted at first, expecting people to shout at her to be quiet, but no one did. Instead, she heard murmured thanks and requests to play more. Miriam removed the mute and poured all of her sorrow into every note. She had the fleeting thought that if Avi were here, he would hear the Tchaikovsky violin concerto and know it was her. Yet she prayed that he wasn’t, that he was asleep somewhere safe. At last, she put the violin away and tried to sleep.
A voice in the dark asked her to play again the following night after lights-out. Miriam knew it would be the last chance she would ever have before tomorrow’s train carried her into the unknown, so she poured her heart and soul into the music once again. She was in the middle of the Brahms lullaby she used to play for Elisheva when the outside door burst open. A light shattered the darkness, shining all around until it spotted her on her bunk. Miriam shielded her eyes. There was no place to hide.
“Who are you?” a voice behind the light asked.
“Christina Bos.”
“Get your things and come with me.”
CHAPTER 50
Lena’s grief was bottomless. Not only was her father gone, but the brutality and senselessness of his death made it impossible to accept. She held tightly to Bep’s and Maaike’s hands as she watched men bury him beside her mother in the churchyard. Friends had offered to take the girls during the funeral, but Lena needed them beside her to remind her why she must remain strong. At three and a half, Bep didn’t know what had happened except that Opa had walked out of the church and hadn’t come back. Maaike wept inconsolably. She’d heard the shot that killed her grandfather. Now she had withdrawn into herself, no longer a happy ten-year-old. Lena didn’t know how to explain to Maaike why Opa had volunteered to die or why the soldiers would kill a man who had done nothing wrong. The world was upside down.
Wim grieved at home, alone, unable to attend his grandfather’s funeral. It wasn’t safe for him to be out. Lena had no way to contact Ans to tell her that Opa had died, since Max and Ina had told her Ans, too, had gone into hiding.
Lena heard the muffled tears of the people around her as the elder officiating at Papa’s grave site read Jesus’ words. “‘My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’”
After the service, the women offered a small lunch in the empty manse. No one seemed able to eat. Then Lena climbed onto her bicycle with her two girls and pedaled home.
She stood in her bedroom later that night, gazing out the darkened window, unable to sleep. High above, shadowy airplanes blotted out the moon and stars as they moved across the sky, and she remembered Papa’s words about
finding refuge in the shadow of God’s wings. It didn’t seem real that he was gone. Below in her kitchen, the shadow people made soft rustling sounds in the dark. Lena was accustomed to them by now. But when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs, she turned. Pieter stood in the doorway. She ran to him, clinging to him, unable to stop weeping. His body shook with sobs as well.
She finally pulled back to look up into his beloved face. “Is it safe for you to be here?”
“I heard about your father. I had to come.”
“He’s dead . . . Papa’s dead . . . ,” she sobbed. “He volunteered to die! He offered his life so that no one else would be killed.”
“I’m so sorry that you and the girls had to witness that.”
They lay down on the bed together until nearly dawn, sharing their love, telling each other all of the things that the chores of daily life never allowed enough time to say. Pieter left again before dawn. When the sun rose and Lena’s grief returned, she wondered if she’d only dreamed that Pieter had come.
CHAPTER 51
Miriam shielded her eyes against the light shining in her face. “Get your things and come with me,” the guard said. Miriam struggled to breathe, her chest aching, constricting, as she hurried to fetch her suitcase from beneath her bunk. Her fingers trembled as she quickly packed her violin and bow inside it. The barracks had fallen still as if no one dared to move or breathe. She sensed her fellow prisoners watching her in the darkness as she shuffled through the rows of bunks to the door where the guard with the light stood waiting.
“Thank you,” she heard someone whisper as she brushed past. Then another voice and another. “Thank you.” “Thank you for your music.” The whispers multiplied in the darkness, bringing tears to Miriam’s eyes.
She emerged into an icy rain and was led past rows of darkened buildings. They crossed the assembly square in the center of camp to a row of barracks on the other side. Rain dripped from Miriam’s hair and down her back, making her shiver. She feared the coming punishment for daring to play her violin after lights-out—perhaps a beating or solitary confinement. The guard led her inside another barracks much like the one she’d just left. Women murmured their complaints as he shone his light all around. He pointed to an empty bunk with his light.