Gabriel Allon 10 - The Rembrandt Affair

by Daniel Silva

  Unlike France and Belgium, which were placed under German military control, Hitler decided that the Netherlands would be run by a civilian administration. He gave the job to Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart, a fanatical anti-Semite who had presided over Austria after the Anschluss in 1938. Within days, the decrees began. At first, a benign-sounding order forbade Jews from serving as air-raid wardens. Then Jews were ordered to leave The Hague, Holland's capital, and to move from sensitive coastal areas. In September, all Jewish newspapers were banned. In November, all Jews employed by the Dutch civil service, including those who worked in the educational and telephone systems, were summarily dismissed. Then, in January 1941, came the most ominous Nazi decree to date. All Jews residing in Holland were given four weeks to register with the Dutch census office. Those who refused were threatened with prison and faced confiscation of their property.

  "The census provided the Germans with a map showing the name, address, age, and sex of nearly every Jew in Holland. We foolishly gave them the keys to our destruction."

  "Did your father register?"

  "He considered ignoring the order, but in the end decided he had no choice but to comply. We lived at a prominent address in the most visible Jewish neighborhood in the city."

  The census was followed by a cascade of new decrees that served to further isolate, humiliate, and impoverish the Jews of Holland. Jews were forbidden to donate blood. Jews were forbidden to enter hotels or eat in restaurants. Jews were forbidden to attend the theater, visit public libraries, or view art exhibits. Jews were forbidden to serve on the stock exchange. Jews could no longer own pigeons. Jewish children were barred from "Aryan" schools. Jews were required to sell their businesses to non-Jews. Jews were required to surrender art collections and all jewelry except for wedding bands and pocket watches. And Jews were required to deposit all savings in Lippmann, Rosenthal & Company, or LiRo, a formerly Jewish-owned bank that had been taken over by the Nazis.

  The most draconian of the orders was Decree 13, issued on April 29, 1942, requiring Jews over the age of six to wear a yellow Star of David at all times while in public. The badge had to be sewn--not pinned but sewn--above the left breast of the outer garment. In a further insult, Jews were required to surrender four Dutch cents for each of the stars along with a precious clothing ration.

  "My mother tried to make a game out of it in order not to alarm us. When we wore them around the neighborhood, we pretended to be very proud. I wasn't fooled, of course. I'd just turned eleven, and even though I didn't know what was coming, I knew we were in danger. But I pretended for the sake of my sister. Rachel was young enough to be deceived. She loved her yellow star. She used to say that she could feel God's eyes upon her when she wore it."

  "Did your father comply with the order to surrender his paintings?"

  "Everything but the Rembrandt. He removed it from its stretcher and hid it in a crawl space in the attic, along with a sack of diamonds he'd kept after selling his business to a Dutch competitor. My mother wept as our family heirlooms left the house. But my father said not to worry. I'll never forget his words. 'They're just objects,' he said. 'What's important is that we have each other. And no one can take that away.'"

  And still the decrees kept coming. Jews were forbidden to leave their homes at night. Jews were forbidden to enter the homes of non-Jews. Jews were forbidden to use public telephones. Jews were forbidden to ride on trains or streetcars. Then, on July 5, 1942, Adolf Eichmann's Central Office for Jewish Emigration dispatched notices to four thousand Jews informing them that they had been selected for "labor service" in Germany. It was a lie, of course. The deportations had begun.

  "Did your family receive an order to report?"

  "Not right away. The first names selected were primarily German Jews who had taken refuge in Holland after 1933. Ours didn't come until the second week of September. We were told to report to Amsterdam's Centraal Station and given very specific instructions on what to pack. I remember my father's face. He knew it was a death sentence."

  "What did he do?"

  "He went up to the attic to retrieve the Rembrandt and the bag of diamonds."

  "And then?"

  "We tore the stars from our clothing and went into hiding."

  18

  AMSTERDAM

  Chiara had been right about Lena Herzfeld. After years of silence, she was finally ready to speak about the war. She did not rush headlong toward the terrible secret that lay buried in her past. She worked her way there slowly, methodically, a school-teacher with a difficult lesson to impart. Gabriel and Chiara, trained observers of human emotion, made no attempt to force the proceedings. Instead, they sat silently on Lena's snow-white couch, hands folded in their laps, like a pair of rapt pupils.

  "Are you familiar with the Dutch word verzuiling?" Lena asked.

  "I'm afraid not," replied Gabriel.

  It was, she said, a uniquely Dutch concept that had helped to preserve social harmony in a country sharply divided along Catholic and Protestant lines. Peace had been maintained not through interaction but strict separation. If one were a Calvinist, for example, one read a Calvinist newspaper, shopped at a Calvinist butcher, cheered for Calvinist sporting clubs, and sent one's children to a Calvinist school. The same was true for Roman Catholics and Jews. Close friendships between Catholics and Calvinists were unusual. Friendships between Jews and Christians of any sort were virtually unheard of. Verzuiling was the main reason why so few Jews were able to hide from the Germans for any length of time once the roundups and deportations began. Most had no one to turn to for help.

  "But that wasn't true of my father. Before the war, he made a number of friends outside the Jewish community through his business dealings. There was one man in particular, a Roman Catholic gentleman named Nikolaas de Graaf. He lived with his wife and four children in a house near the Vondelpark. I assume my father paid him a substantial amount of money, but neither of them spoke of such things. We entered the de Graaf house shortly before midnight on the ninth of September, one by one, so that the neighbors wouldn't notice us. We were each wearing three sets of clothing because we didn't dare move about the city with suitcases. A hiding place had been prepared for us in the attic. We climbed the ladder and the door was closed. After that...it was permanent night."

  The attic had no amenities other than a few old blankets that had been laid upon the floor. Each morning, Mrs. de Graaf provided a basin of fresh water for rudimentary washing. The toilet was one floor below; for reasons of security, the de Graafs requested its use be limited to two visits per family member each day. Talking above a whisper was forbidden, and there was to be no verbal communication whatsoever at night. Clean clothing was provided once a week, and food was limited to whatever the de Graafs could spare from their own rations. The attic had no window. Lights or candles were not permitted, even on Shabbat. Before long, the entire Herzfeld family was suffering from malnutrition and the psychological effects of prolonged exposure to darkness.

  "We were white as ghosts and very thin. When Mrs. de Graaf was cooking, the smell would rise up to the attic. After the family had eaten, she would bring us our portion. It was never enough. But, of course, we didn't complain. I always had the impression that Mrs. de Graaf was very frightened about our presence. She barely looked at us, and our trips downstairs made her edgy. For us, they were the only break from the darkness and the silence. We couldn't read because there was no light. We couldn't listen to the radio or speak because noise was forbidden. At night, we listened to the German razzias and trembled with fear."

  The Germans did not conduct the raids alone. They were assisted by special units of the Dutch police known as Schalkhaarders and by a German-created force known as the Voluntary Auxiliary Police. Regarded as fanatical Jew hunters who would stop at nothing to fill their nightly quotas, the Auxiliary officers were primarily members of the Dutch SS and Dutch Nazi party. Early in the deportation process, they were paid seven and a half guilders for ea
ch Jew they arrested. But as the deportations steadily drained Holland of its Jews and prey became harder to find, the bounty was increased to forty guilders. In a time of war and economic privation, it was a substantial sum of money, one that led many Dutch citizens to supply information about Jews in hiding for a few pieces of silver.

  "It was our greatest fear. The fear that we would be betrayed. Not by the de Graafs but by a neighbor or an acquaintance who knew of our presence. My father was most concerned about the de Graaf children. Three were teenagers, but the youngest boy was my age. My father feared the boy might accidentally tell one of his schoolmates. You know how children can be. They say things to impress their friends without fully understanding the consequences."

  "Is that what happened?"

  "No," she said, shaking her head emphatically. "As it turned out, the de Graaf children never breathed a word about our presence. It was one of the neighbors who did us in. A woman who lived next door."

  "She heard you through the attic?"

  Lena's eyes rose toward the ceiling, and her gaze grew fearful. "No," she said finally. "She saw me."

  "Where?"

  "In the garden."

  "The garden? What were you doing in the garden, Lena?"

  She started to answer, then buried her face in her hands and wept. Gabriel held her tightly, struck by her complete silence. Lena Herzfeld, the child of darkness, the child of the attic, could still cry without making a sound.

  19

  AMSTERDAM

  What followed was the confession of Lena Herzfeld. Her transgression had started as a minor act of disobedience committed by a desperate child who simply wanted to touch the snow. She had not planned the adventure. In fact, to this day she did not know what woke her in the early-morning hours of February 12, 1943, or what prompted her to rise quietly from her bed and descend the ladder from the attic. She remembered the hall had been in complete darkness. Even so, she had no trouble finding her way to the bathroom. She had taken those same seven steps, twice each day, for the past five months. Those seven steps had constituted her only form of exercise. Her only break from the monotony of the attic. And her only chance to see the outside world.

  "There was a window next to the basin. It was small and round and overlooked the rear garden. Mrs. de Graaf insisted the curtain be kept closed whenever we entered."

  "But you opened it against her wishes?"

  "From time to time." A pause, then, "I was only a child."

  "I know, Lena," Gabriel said, his tone forgiving. "Tell me what you saw."

  "I saw fresh snow glowing in the moonlight. I saw the stars." She looked at Gabriel. "I'm sure it seems terribly ordinary to you now, but to a child who had been locked in an attic for five months it was..."

  "Irresistible?"

  "It seemed like heaven. A small corner of heaven, but heaven nonetheless. I wanted to touch the snow. I wanted to see the stars. And part of me wanted to look God directly in the eye and ask Him why He had done this to us."

  She scrutinized Gabriel as if calculating whether this stranger who had appeared on her doorstep was truly a worthy recipient of such a memory.

  "You were born in Israel?" she asked.

  He answered not as Gideon Argov but as himself.

  "I was born in an agricultural settlement in the Valley of Jezreel."

  "And your parents?"

  "My father's family came from Munich. My mother was born in Berlin. She was deported to Auschwitz in 1942. Her parents were gassed upon arrival, but she managed to survive until the end. She was marched out in January 1945."

  "The Death March? My God, but she must have been a remarkable woman to survive such an ordeal." She looked at him for a moment, then asked, "What did she tell you?"

  "My mother never spoke of it, not even to me."

  Lena gave a perceptive nod. Then, after another long pause, she described how she stole silently down the stairs of the de Graaf house and slipped outside into the garden. She was wearing no shoes, and the snow was very cold against her stockinged feet. It didn't matter; it felt wonderful. She grabbed snow by the handful and breathed deeply of the freezing air until her throat began to burn. She spread her arms wide and began to twirl, so that the stars and the sky moved like a kaleidoscope. She twirled and twirled until her head began to spin.

  "It was then I noticed the face in the window of the house next door. She looked frightened--truly frightened. I can only imagine how I must have looked to her. Like a pale gray ghost. Like a creature from another world. I obeyed my first instinct, which was to run back inside. But I'm afraid that probably compounded my mistake. If I'd managed to react calmly, it's possible she might have thought I was one of the de Graaf children. But by running, I betrayed myself and the rest of my family. It was like shouting at the top of my lungs that I was a Jew in hiding. I might as well have been wearing my yellow star."

  "Did you tell your parents what had happened?"

  "I wanted to, but I was too afraid. I just lay on my blanket and waited. After a few hours, Mrs. de Graaf brought us our basin of fresh water, and I knew we had survived the night."

  The remainder of the day proceeded much like the one hundred and fifty-five that had come before it. They washed to the best of their ability. They were given a bit of food to eat. They made two trips each to the toilet. On her second trip, Lena was tempted to peer out the window into the garden to see if her footprints were still visible in the snow. Instead, she walked the seven steps back to the ladder and returned to the darkness.

  That night was Shabbat. Speaking in whispers, the Herzfeld family recited the three blessings--even though they had no candles, no bread, and no wine--and prayed that God would protect them for another week. A few minutes later, the razzias started up: German boots on cobblestone streets, Schalkhaarders shouting out commands in Dutch.

  "Usually, the raiding parties would pass us by, and the sound would grow fainter. But not that night. On that night the sound grew louder and louder until the entire house began to shake. I knew they were coming for us. I was the only one who knew."

  20

  AMSTERDAM

  Lena Herzfeld lapsed into a prolonged, exhausted silence. Gabriel could see that in her mind a door had closed. On one side was an old woman living alone in Amsterdam; on the other, a child who had mistakenly betrayed her family. Gabriel suggested they stop for the night. And a part of him wondered whether to continue at all. For what purpose? For a painting that was probably lost forever? But much to his surprise, it was Lena who insisted on pressing forward, Lena who demanded to tell the rest of the story. Not for the sake of the Rembrandt, she assured him, but for herself. She needed to explain how severely she had been punished for those few stolen moments in the garden. And she needed to atone. And so, for the first time in her life, she described how her family had been dragged from the attic under the shamed gaze of the de Graaf children. And how they were taken by truck to, of all places, the Hollandsche Schouwburg, once the most glamorous theater in Amsterdam.

  "The Germans had turned it into a detention center for captured Jews. It was nothing like I remembered, of course. The seats had been removed from the orchestra, the chandeliers had been ripped from the ceiling, and there were ropes hanging like nooses above what was left of the stage."

  Her memories were something from a nightmare. Memories of laughing Schalkhaarders swapping stories about the evening's hunt. Memories of a young boy who'd attempted to flee and was beaten senseless. Memories of a dozen elderly men and women who had been pulled from their beds at a home for the aged and were seated calmly in their frayed nightgowns as if waiting for the performance to begin. And memories, too, of a tall man dressed entirely in black striding godlike across the stage, a portrait by Rembrandt in one hand, a sack of diamonds in the other.

  "The man was SS?"

  "Yes."

  "Were you ever told his name?"

  She hesitated. "I learned it later, but I will not say it."

  Gabrie
l gave a placatory nod. Lena closed her eyes and continued. What she remembered most about him, she said, was the smell of leather rising from his freshly polished boots. His eyes were deep brown, the hair dark and richly oiled, the skin sallow and bloodless. His manner was aristocratic and shockingly courteous.

  "This was no village bumpkin in a nice uniform. This was a man from a good family. A man from the upper reaches of German society. Initially, he spoke to my father in excellent Dutch. Then, after establishing that my father spoke German, he switched."

  "Did you speak German?"

  "A little."

  "Were you able to understand what was happening?"

  "Bits and pieces. The SS man scolded my father for having violated the decrees concerning Jewish financial assets and valuables such as jewelry and works of art. He then informed my father that both the diamonds and the Rembrandt would have to be confiscated before our deportation to the labor camps. But there was just one thing he required first. He wanted my father to sign a piece of paper."

  "A forfeiture document?"

  She shook her head. "A bill of sale, not for the diamonds, only for the Rembrandt. He wanted my father to sell him the painting. The price would be one hundred guilders--payable at a future date, of course. One hundred guilders...less than the Jew hunters earned on a good night of roundups."

  "You saw the actual contract?"

  She hesitated, then nodded slowly. "The Germans were precise in all things, and paperwork was very important to them. They recorded everything. The number of people murdered each day in the gas chambers. The number of shoes left behind. The weight of the gold wrenched from the dead before they were thrown into the crematoria."

  Again Lena's voice trailed off, and for a moment Gabriel feared she was lost to them. But she quickly composed herself and continued. Tonight, Lena Herzfeld had chosen Gabriel and Chiara to hear her testimony. Tonight there was no turning back.