What World is Left

by Monique Polak

  Of course they sent us here because we are Jews. In my case, though, that seems particularly unfair. Judaism means nothing to me. It’s true I’m a Jew, but I’m a Dutch girl, a Hollander first. I’ve never stepped foot inside a synagogue, unless you count one visit to the old, gray stone synagogue in Zutphen where my opa lives. Theo and I only went there to see the stone outside, the one that was laid by Isaac Van Raalte, Opa’s father, our great-grandfather. He was the last of the religious Van Raaltes.

  When Mother and I sometimes ran errands in Waterlooplein, the part of Amsterdam where the Orthodox Jews live, I felt as distant from them—with their prayer shawls draped over their shoulders, the men with long side locks—as if they lived on Mars.

  That is about all Judaism means to me. That and the dry crackers Mother sometimes offered us in springtime. “Matzoh,” she called them. All I knew was that the crackers tasted awful until they were slathered with a thick layer of sweet butter and sprinkled with sugar.

  Judaism is a subject I never thought much about before the war. I was too busy living my life, going to school, meeting up with friends and reading poetry. As for God—what need had I for Him?

  Now that I’m in Theresienstadt, I’ve decided it’s a good thing I was never a believer. Otherwise I’d have lost my faith in God. What kind of God would make the skin on an ordinary girl’s fingers burn from scrubbing? What kind of God would invent latrines and guards with guns? No, I’m glad I have no faith to lose.

  When we learned from Sara’s family about the mistreatment of German Jews, we thought it was disgraceful, but we never worried for ourselves. Holland was far from Germany, and besides, wouldn’t the many dikes on the coast of our little country keep us safe?

  When we were younger, before Theo was old enough for school, the two of us would play in Father’s studio while Mother prepared dinner. Father said he liked our company—as long as we didn’t fight or meddle with his art supplies. Sometimes as a special treat, he let me change the water where he dipped his brushes. I’d walk down the hallway, carrying the little jar of water turned to blackish brown soup from the combination of all the colors Father had used. I remember feeling as important as if I were carrying the Holy Grail. What Jewish girl thinks such a thing? Not a religious one, that’s for sure.

  Sometimes, when Father’s pen stopped making its scratching sounds and he laid his paint brushes aside, lining them up from shortest to tallest, Father would show us what he’d drawn that afternoon. Of course, it was really me he wanted to show his work to. Theo was too young to appreciate it.

  The memory of one drawing comes to me now: a drawing that changed our lives. In it, a scowling man with a dark mustache climbs a stepladder. He is holding a paintbrush, and there is a can of paint by his feet. Underneath, in Father’s tidy black script, are the words: If only he’d stayed a housepainter.

  “The man’s mustache is funny,” Theo said when Father showed us the drawing.

  “Who is he?” I asked Father. Father’s drawings appeared from Monday through Friday on page three of the Telegraaf, the Amsterdam newspaper. His work was almost always funny, but this time, I didn’t see the joke.

  It was dusk, and a shadow crossed Father’s face. “It’s Adolf Hitler,” Father explained.

  “Hitler?”

  “A madman who’s come to power in Germany,” was all Father said as he arranged his jars of paint in a neat row.

  In the end, our dikes did not keep us safe. In May of 1940, the Nazis, hungry to swallow up more of Europe, invaded Holland. The moffen—that’s what we called the Germans because of the furry muffs they wore to keep their hands warm in winter—came rolling in on their big gray tanks like a herd of angry elephants. I was almost too afraid to look. My knees shook when I heard the rumble of the tanks. How could this be happening in Holland? I’d studied wars in history class, but somehow, I never dreamt I’d see one up close. Five days later, Holland capitulated.

  That was when Sara disappeared. Packed up her little suitcase and left early one morning without even bothering to say good-bye. She knew better than any of us what the Nazis were capable of. Did she somehow manage to escape from Holland? We never received word from her, but I like to think she found a way out of the country. I imagined her in London. I’d been to Paris on holiday with my parents and Theo, but never to London. Perhaps Sara had found work there as a housemaid, or fallen in love with a handsome widower who spoke with a British accent. She loved his children as if they were her own, and they called her Mama, nearly forgetting their own mother who’d perished from some terrible disease. Consumption, yes, it was consumption. Such a tragedy.

  There I went...inventing stories again.

  Once the Nazis took power, life in Holland got worse and worse for us Jews. We were forbidden to enter public parks or visit Christian homes. I’ll never forget the night we were turned away when we went for dinner to the Port van Cleef in Amsterdam.

  “I’m so sorry, Meneer Van Raalte,” Jan, the head waiter, told us, pointing to a sheet of paper tacked onto the restaurant’s wooden door. A lump formed in my throat when I read the words on the sheet: No Jews allowed.

  Jan refused to meet Father’s eye. “Rules are rules,” Jan said softly.

  Mother turned her back and began marching down the street toward Central Station. “I’d prefer to eat beef steak at home anyhow,” she called out.

  “Yes!” I raised my voice so Jan would hear me. “And Mother’s won’t be dry like the ones you serve at the Port van Cleef.”

  Later, we would not be able to ride cars or trams, or even swim in the canal behind our house. Not being allowed to swim felt even more unfair than being turned away from the Port van Cleef. On hot summer afternoons, Theo and I listened from behind the curtains as the neighbor children splashed in the canal outside.

  Then, of course, there was the yellow star with the word Jood—Dutch for Jew—inscribed on it in fierce black letters. Mother had to sew them on all our clothes, and we had to wear the star wherever we went. It had to be worn on the left side, where our hearts were.

  I remember how hard my heart had beat the first time I wore one. Mother sewed it on my favorite blue sweater, the one from Opa’s clothing shop in Zutphen. My eyes filled with tears. Not just because I had to walk around Broek with this humiliating mark, but because of how ugly it made my sweater look. The harsh yellow, a fiery angry shade, clashed with the beautiful blue.

  None of us wanted to venture from the house wearing the star. Not even Father. It was Mother who was bravest. “I’m not going to stay cooped up inside all day,” she announced, holding her head high. “I’m going for a walk.”

  We were waiting by the front door when she came back a half hour later. She gave us a bright smile. “That wasn’t so bad,” was all she said.

  We got used to the yellow star. And though we were devastated at first, we also got used to it when the Nazis sent Father to a Dutch prison.

  It turned out the Nazis didn’t think much of the drawing Father had made of Hitler.

  Of course I missed Father. I was his favorite. And who would rub his forehead now when he got one of his migraines? Mother traveled once a week to the prison. When she got home, her face looked more tired than I’d ever seen it. “Father is fine,” she assured us. “He’ll be home soon.” But it was almost a year before Father was released. In the meantime, I had to change schools. As a Jew, I was no longer allowed inside the Amsterdam Lyceum, the school I loved so much and where I did so well. Instead I was sent to the Joodse Lyceum—the Jewish High School—along with every other Jewish child my age who lived in the Amsterdam area.

  The Joodse Lyceum was a plain, brown brick building in an inelegant part of town. How I longed for my old school!

  I stopped trying to do my best. I left my homework undone in my satchel, and I whispered with the other students during class. “Anneke, if I have to tell you one more time to stop, I’ll...,” Meneer Cohen, who taught us Latin, warned.

  I looked hi
m in the eye. Everything about Meneer Cohen bothered me: the fact that he’d been a professor at the University of Amsterdam before the war, the gray stubble on his chin, his long tobacco-stained fingers, which shook when he got upset with us. Who was he to threaten me? He was as powerless as the rest of us.

  “You’ll...what will you do exactly, Meneer Cohen?” I said.

  I’d never have dared to be so bold at the Amsterdam Lyceum, but what did I care now? Besides, what more did I have to lose? The other students giggled. But I took no pleasure in that. Most days, I hated Meneer Cohen. Sometimes, though, I pitied him, and that made me feel even angrier.

  Johan was the only one I knew at the Joodse Lyceum. We’d been friends forever. My heart softened a little when I thought about the birthday party where he’d given me the golden brooch I loved so much. The day of the party seems so far away now, but what fun it had been. I could practically hear Mother’s voice ringing from down the hall. “Johan’s here!” she called. “The others are in the parlor,” she told Johan.

  I gave Wilma, Trude and Theo a stern look. If they laughed, they’d give our game away.

  Johan was carrying a small parcel wrapped with a silver ribbon. “Happy birthday, Anneke,” he said as he walked into the parlor. Mother was behind him, her eyes sparkling with mischief. She was the one who had taught us the game.

  I had folded one of my legs beneath me, exactly the way Mother had shown me. My blue wool leotards felt scratchy. Before the party, Mother had cut the leg off another pair of my blue leotards and stuffed it full of rags, so that now, where my leg should have been, there was a stuffed leg in its place. Sitting like that was uncomfortable, but I tried not to squirm. The fun was worth a little discomfort. I tried not to laugh when I remembered how Trude shrieked when we played the trick on her.

  “Johan! Johan! Pull on Anneke’s legs!” Theo screamed with laughter. Though Theo was only eight at the time, he acted as if he was much younger. It comes from being the baby in the family.

  “No, no,” I said. “You have to pull on all our legs.” I glared at Theo to remind him that if he weren’t my brother, he’d never have been invited to this party.

  Johan put his parcel down on the table. I wondered what it was. A bracelet or a brooch, perhaps? His mother has very good taste. Yes, I hoped it was a brooch. I would wear it on my new blue sweater.

  Johan approached our little circle, kneeling so he could pull on each of our legs. Wilma giggled, which made Trude giggle. I held my breath so I wouldn’t start giggling. Giggling can be contagious, especially at birthday parties where you play tricks on your guests.

  “Oww, not so hard!” Theo said when Johan pulled on his leg.

  Next he pulled on Trude’s leg, then Wilma’s. “It’s a silly game,” Johan said when he came to me.

  I tried to look stern.

  Johan pulled on my right leg first. I met Mother’s eyes. She was standing by the door, smiling.

  “Oh my God!” Johan screamed when he pulled on my left leg. The stuffed stocking came loose and fell to the floor. Johan covered his mouth with his hand. The rest of us doubled over in laughter.

  A little over a year later, I looked over at Johan, who was doing his math sums. So much had changed by then, but there was a little comfort in knowing that Johan was still Johan.

  Not all of the four hundred or so students at the Joodse Lyceum were Dutch. About half were moffen, German Jews who’d fled to Holland as Sara had done.

  One of the moffen girls caught my attention. Or rather her clothes caught my attention. She was far better dressed than the rest of us, and by then, with Father in jail, we had no money for luxury items like new clothes.

  The girl’s name, I learned, was Eva. We were the same age, but she was in another classroom. Eva’s older sister, Ilse, had the same dark hair and eyes.

  “I like your jacket,” I told Eva one fall morning when I happened to be walking up the school steps next to her. The jacket had a gray fur collar. I think it was made of rabbit. I’d never seen anything so chic in all my life.

  “Why, thank you,” she replied, and I felt her eyes on my own outfit, sizing it up and finding it wanting. Mother had washed the blue sweater so many times it had started to pill. Little bits of blue wool dotted the elbows. Eva didn’t return my compliment, but she slowed her pace so we could take the steps together.

  “How do you find Meneer Cohen as a teacher? They say he can be very strict,” she said.

  “Strict?” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “He tries to be strict,” I lowered my voice, and added, “but I think he’s afraid of us.”

  Eva’s dark eyes shone. “Afraid of you—of all of you?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Especially of me. He’s terrified of me!” I opened my mouth wide and made a roaring sound. Like a lion.

  Eva giggled.

  After that first conversation, we always waved when we saw each other from across the hall. And whenever we took the stairs together, I made my roaring sound and Eva would laugh appreciatively.

  I tried to keep count of how many different outfits she had. A blue-and-black plaid skirt. A green sweater with buttons shaped like daisies. Blouses in every color. I decided that either her family was very rich, or Eva was very spoiled. Or maybe both. And though I was a little envious of her fancy clothes, I liked her because of her mischievous eyes and the way she laughed at my lion imitation.

  Then one morning in June of 1942 Eva didn’t come to school. I wondered if perhaps she’d come down with a cold or the flu. But Ilse was absent too. I swallowed hard.

  Students often disappeared without a word from the Joodse Lyceum. Sometimes, we learned they were rounded up by the Nazis in one of their razzias—raids that were becoming more and more frequent—then sent away by train to be resettled in the east. Sometimes—and this was only the stuff of rumors—we heard that some of the disappeared students had gone into hiding. Usually, for safety, they would have to be separated from their families. Poor Eva, I thought, knowing how attached she was to her sister. But then again, if her family was as rich as I imagined, they might have been able to stay together. I hoped that was the case, and for a moment, I wondered whether I could manage without Father, Mother and even Theo.

  It’s true that Theo could be a nuisance, and I sometimes wished he’d never been born, especially when he called me fat and said no boy would ever want to marry me. “You’ll never find a volunteer!” he used to shout, laughing out loud and dancing around me in a circle. That made me so angry the vein in my forehead swelled up and made my head ache.

  But no matter how annoying Theo was, I couldn’t imagine waking up or going to sleep without him. Just thinking about it made my whole body go cold.

  I so hoped Eva and Ilse and their parents were all together. And I couldn’t help thinking: what good would Eva’s fancy outfits do her now?

  The notice that we were going to be deported from Amsterdam came in April, 1943. By then, Father was back home. Mother had petitioned for his release, and in the end, the Nazis decided their case against Father wasn’t strong enough to keep him in prison any longer. It was a good thing the Telegraaf had continued paying Father’s salary when he was in prison; otherwise, we wouldn’t have had the money to pay our bills or to buy food.

  When the news of deportation came, I felt at first like I was having a bad dream. Then I looked around our house and thought of all the things I’d miss: the stained glass window over our front door, the potbelly stove, the fireplace in the parlor and my lovely room. “How will I live without all the things I’m used to?” I sobbed.

  “You’ll manage,” Mother said, running her hand across my forehead. “We’ll all manage.”

  “At least,” Father added, “the four of us will be together.” That reminded me of the time he’d spent in prison away from us, and I was sorry then for having caused a fuss.

  So I did my best under the circumstances. But you could tell things were tense at our house because Theo and I had stopped fighti
ng.

  We were each allowed to bring along one suitcase and a rucksack. Mother put a woolen blanket into each of our suitcases. She kept a close eye on whatever else we packed, shaking her head when she saw me tuck my volume of Heinrich Heine’s poems into my bag.

  “Don’t you know those poems by heart, Anneke?” she asked. And because I did, I left the book on my desk. I packed two skirts, two blouses, two sweaters (including the blue one), and several pairs of socks and underwear. Only at the very last moment, when Mother was busy overseeing what Theo had packed and admonishing him for trying to bring along his model train, did I manage to pack two things Mother would no doubt have disapproved of: the mirror brooch Johan had given me, and my cream-colored silk dress with the smocking on it. Not that the dress fit me. In fact, I hadn’t worn it since I was five. But it had always been my favorite. It had been custom-made by a dressmaker in Amsterdam and though I’d outgrown it nearly a decade before, I kept it at the back of my closet, refusing to pass it on to my cousin, Izabel. The dress was a memory of happier, carefree days.

  I’d worn it the day I’d met Queen Wilhelmina. Well, all right, I didn’t exactly meet her. But she’d seen me. Noticed me. There’d been a parade in Amsterdam on April 30 to mark her birthday. The streets were lined with Dutchmen, hoping to get a glimpse of her, perhaps to shake her hand. Even the red and yellow tulips blooming on the side of the road seemed to be reaching out to meet her.

  I was sitting on Father’s shoulders when Queen Wilhelmina passed. Mother was cradling Theo, who was only a baby, in her arms. The Queen’s carriage slowed down when she passed us. First she nodded at Father and smiled. She must have known he was Joseph Van Raalte, the artist for the Telegraaf. Then she lifted her gaze in my direction. And I’ve never forgotten what she said then. “What a darling girl. And what a darling dress!”

  Even then, with my bag nearly packed for our trip to God knew where, the memory of that day made me smile. And so, I slipped the little dress into my suitcase. If Mother lost her temper when she discovered it, so be it.