Aunt Rezi and Anne collected the soup bowls and took them away. In the uneasy silence, they could hear dishes clattering in the kitchen. Then Abel asked, ‘What about the students, Pam, Ted? Weren’t you asked to sign a loyalty oath?’
Before they could answer, Miriam said, ‘It’s the same at school, Papa. The teachers had to sign something, and they all refused. They were standing in front of the rector’s office and, when one of them said she wouldn’t go in, they all turned around and went back to their rooms.’
‘All of them?’
‘Yes, and everyone applauded when they came back.'
‘And the university?’ Abel asked again.
‘A few professors haven’t been around this week', Ted told him. 'They must have heard about the oath. They’ll have to come back to work eventually, of course.’ He hesitated, then added, ‘Or not.’
‘What about the others?’
‘Oh, most of the professors signed, and then most of the students. They figured they’d better if they wanted to stay on, but they looked pretty uncomfortable about it.’
‘Did you? All right, stay as long as you can.’ He turned to their father. ‘And in Leiden?’
‘We all went home,’ Ben told him. ‘We kept our honor and, I assume, we lost our jobs. And yes, I want my children to lie even when I don’t. Don’t ask me to explain.’
Pam’s mother looked at her, eyebrows raised. It was always the same. If her husband had something important to say, he said it to his brother-in-law, and then Abel told Aunt Rezi who told her sister-in-law Lillian who told her daughter Pam. None of the women could figure out whether he did it to protect his wife and daughter, or because he thought women didn’t understand most things anyway, so why bother.
He was smiling now and running a finger around the rim of his wine glass, as though he’d mentioned a minor problem he would sort out when he had a few minutes. Abel frowned, Adrian grinned, Simon poured everybody more wine and Aunt Rezi said, ‘Pass the salt, Miriam.’ Each week she had introduced another traditional dish into their Friday night dinners. Chicken had replaced lamb or beef and her soup, thick with onion and carrot slices and flavored with garlic and pepper, was delicious. When her husband asked for butter one evening, she said, ‘Not with chicken,’ and he burst out laughing.
‘If it makes you happy, Rezi, of course. Just don’t ask me to say a prayer.’
‘I say the prayer,’ she said firmly. She was going to be sure they remembered who they were. There wouldn’t be a Christmas tree this year. The candles, the wine and the way they wanted to be together every week felt right, familiar. And she knew what Simon was doing and was proud of him.
There was no dessert, sugar and butter were rationed and hard to find, but the men were happy to finish the second bottle of wine and the remains of the bread. The women cleared the table, washed and dried everything and sat down with a pot of tea. Hoping to hear more from her uncle, who still managed to keep in touch with London, Pam went back to the living room. Ted was sitting on the windowsill with his arms crossed over his chest, Adrian was sprawled in a corner of the sofa, and she sat down next to him.
‘It’s a matter of a few weeks, Ben,’ Abel was saying, ‘and then they’re going to make everybody get a new identity card. They know the old system is so out-of-date it's useless. They want to send as many men as possible to work in Germany, so they need to know who everybody is and where to find them. And since they can tag us as Jews at the same time, they’ll do that too.’
‘You know that?’
‘I know it.’
Leaning forward, Adrian raised his hand to get his father’s attention. ‘Come on, Pa, you’re the historian around here. Do you really think the Germans are going to be nicer to us than they’ve been to their own Jews? Why would they?’
Marcus had quoted the German officer, ‘If we don’t see them, they won’t see us’. Everybody had heard about that. There were Jews who didn’t trust the Germans, but there were more who thought that, after all, they’d been law-abiding citizens all their lives. If they just did what the new government told them to do, what did they have to be afraid of? Pam didn’t know what to believe. She’d seen policemen stopping people to check their identity cards, men mostly. Girls interested them, especially the pretty ones, but they weren't asked their names.
‘Somebody told me,’ Pam began, then Adrian interrupted and she stopped.
‘And are your Dutch colleagues going to be braver than your intellectual friends in Germany, the ones who thank God they’re not the sort of people the Nazis are locking up? Really nice people who are joining the party they insist they despise? Just in case? “Some of my best friends are Jews”, usually followed by “but”.’
‘You’re right, of course,’ Ben said, surprising Adrian so much that he started to laugh. ‘No, you are, and I admit it. I cut off my contacts with some of them months ago, they disgust me as much as they do you. But racial discrimination is as old as the Bible, and the persecution of Jews is just one example of man’s inhumanity to man.'
‘"And makes countless thousands mourn,"’ Simon finished for him, surprising them.
‘Yes, thanks, that’s the rest of it. Most people despise everybody who isn’t just like themselves. It’s not only a Jewish tragedy. Though that’s not a consoling thought, far from it.’
‘I’m not sure you’re right, Ben,’ Abel said. ‘This isn’t just the plain old anti-Semitism we’ve all gotten so used to. Who else, before Hitler, has ever claimed there is a master race whose duty it is to destroy, us, its mortal enemy? This is not just about another country forbidding us to do this kind of work or live in that part of the city. This is about a man who wrote that we’re poisoning the blood of the German people.’
‘To which those people said hurrah and let’s do it.’ Adrian added.
‘Yes,’ Abel agreed, ‘and plain old anti-Semitism helped. When a Jew-hater gets drunk and shouts “Let’s beat up a Jew,” everyone laughs, and some of them help him do it, but when his government tells him it’s a matter of them or him, he has permission to murder.’
‘So now I'm a Jew, nothing else?’ Ben said. ‘After all these years thinking of myself as a Dutchman, a historian, a professor, a husband, a father, a friend, and none of these categories having anything to do with which god I worship, if any? Sorry, but I don’t feel more Jewish all of a sudden. This Shabbat supper every week is charming, but what does it have to do with my mind and my work? My real life? Or with yours?’
‘But this is real life, Ben. While we were not thinking about being Jews, there have been deportations, imprisonments, robberies, murders all over Europe. Go on ignoring it, and you will be shocked someday to discover you no longer can.’
‘Oh Abel, what drama!’
‘You think so? Go back to the university tomorrow and say what you think. Protest!’
‘I’m not going back there, you know that. I don’t know, am I too old to understand?’
‘Too much the professor, I’d say, too much with your nose in the 18th century, which wasn’t such a happy time either. Your favorite Prussian king was a warmonger too. In fact, don’t the Nazis call Hitler the new Frederick? And will he take Germany as close to destruction as Frederick did? What was it, Ben, twenty-five years of bloodshed and nothing gained?’
‘We’re not giving Hitler twenty-five,’ Ted said. ‘not here in Holland, at least. We don’t think the war’s over just because the government has given up. There’s a lot we can do to defeat them.’ When Adrian laughed, he turned to him and asked, ‘Why is that funny, Adrie? You’ve got plenty of friends who would agree.’
‘Plenty? I wish I did! But, yes, some of us are disgusted and angry, and we'll fight.’
‘Papa,’ Pam began, but he held up his hand to stop her.
‘Be quiet, Pam!’ he ordered, shocking them all. Nobody spoke until he apologized, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m not angry with you, but this conversation is between the boys and me.’ Pointing at Te
d, he said, ‘If you mean sabotage, you'd better stop before you start. You know very well you’ll go to prison if you’re caught.’
‘Somebody has to do it,’ Ted insisted. ‘Why not us? And we’re not stupid. We’re not planning to blow up buildings or assassinate anybody.’
‘Not yet,’ Adrian muttered, so softly that only Pam heard him. She looked down at their hands, his lying lightly over hers with all its strength held back. He’d always been stronger and more daring than Ted. Could he do that, blow up a building, kill somebody? A Storm Trooper had been murdered a few weeks before and, since the Germans didn't know who’d done it, they had rounded-up a dozen or so innocent men and shot them. Would that stop Adrian? She didn’t know.
‘Anything you do that’s illegal is dangerous, Ted, so don’t!’
‘You aren’t ordering me, are you, Pa?’
‘Good advice needn’t be an order, surely?’
Adrian started to laugh, coughed and looked out the window.
‘And you?’ his father asked. ‘Adrian?’
After a moment’s silence, Adrian looked around. ‘Sorry, Pa, but you’re wasting your breath. Ted and I are already doing what we can and, yes, it’s illegal. Go on, tell him, Teddie.’
Ben drank some wine so hastily that he choked, then waved a hand to order his son to be quiet. When he could speak, he turned to Abel. ‘Well, what do you think? Shall we let them make martyrs of themselves? Are you ready to sacrifice your son? I’m not!’ Abel put up a hand to interrupt, but Ben went on, ‘Is there something wrong with wanting them to get through this safely? They’ll end up in front of a firing squad, if they don’t die in prison first.’
Abel laughed, ‘When did you become so illogical, my friend? About five minutes ago you were agreeing that your colleagues in Germany are despicable, and now you’re telling us to obey their laws, and the next thing you’re going to recommend is that we join the NSB just in case. No, I know you won’t. But for heaven’s sake, Ben, trust our sons to do the right thing. Of course you want them to get through this safely, and maybe they will and maybe they won’t. It may go on until long after we all die, safely in our beds or in front of a firing squad. Don’t sputter, Ben, you know I’m right.’
“You’re always right! That was a compliment, Abel.’ Turning to Ted, he said, ‘Go on, son. Don’t give me any names, I don’t want to know them. I just want you to tell me what you’re doing for them.’
‘With them,’ Ted corrected. ‘There’s a church deacon who got into the city hall in the town he lives in and stole a couple of hundred identity cards. We got some of them, and the idea is to fill them in with new names and birthdates for Jews who want to get out of the country.’
‘What do you do?’
‘I try to use different handwriting as much as I can, so that they don’t all look the same. Copying the signature of some official in another town, that’s tricky. People give us their photos, and we have stamps that look just like the real thing.’
‘If those papers are checked against the records at the registry,’ Abel asked, ‘won’t they see that the names aren’t real?’
‘Oh but they are! We get all the names we need from a friend at City Hall. There’s no way the police will notice that two people have the same name and address. They’re not going to be stopped on the street at the same time. This is important, Pa. We’re all going to have to register one of these days, and a lot of us won’t want to be who we are. If you can get away with not being Jewish, you’ll be a lot safer.’
‘All right, I’m convinced. Do I have to have another name? Surely Chambers is neutral enough?’
‘Except you’re on some list somewhere, professor.’
‘It seems I’m not a professor anymore.’
‘True, but the lists remain.'
‘So be it. As for me, I’ll have time at last for my own writing. I’ll miss teaching, of course, I have some promising students, but it will be a scholar’s holiday.’
‘That’s it?’ Abel asked. ‘You’ll stay home and work?’
‘I think not. What we want to do, eventually, is leave Amsterdam and then, perhaps, the country.'
‘Leave the country? You know how dangerous that is? You’ll cross the border straight into German hands!’
‘Of course I know that! And we won't, if we don't have to. We'll go to a colleague’s house in the south. He’s got work to do in Zurich, his wife’s going with him, they won’t have any trouble crossing the border, and they simply won’t come back. We can stay in their place for as long as we wish, it's a small village, and I can work undisturbed.’
Adrian leaned forward and looked at him. ‘Why will it be safer there?’
‘There aren’t any German police there, and his neighbors won’t be surprised that he’s gone and we’ve come. And Lillian has an old school friend near there who’s promised to help us.’
‘Be careful,’ Adrian warned him. ‘People are very nice about helping, until they think they’ll get themselves into trouble. It’s no contest who they choose then, you or themselves.’
‘I hope you’re wrong.’
‘I hope so too,’ Adrian said, ‘but you’ll probably be more noticeable there than here. And I think you’re being optimistic, if you believe you and Ma can sit the war out in some peaceful little village.’
‘What war? You keep talking about war! It’s over, the Dutch have surrendered. How many German soldiers are there in Amsterdam? A few hundred?'
‘Six hundred,' Abel told him. 'But that’s not the point, Ben.’
‘No? What is?’
‘It’s not their city. They think it is, but it’s actually enemy territory, and the home guard aren’t wearing uniforms. They’ve gone underground, and anonymity makes them even more effective.’
The boys smiled at this unexpected support, and Pam said, ‘And some of them are women.’
Her father glared at her. ‘You too?’
‘No, but I'd like to.’
‘I’m not interested in what you'd like to do. Of course you’ll come with us, your mother will insist.’
‘But somebody needs to take care of Ted and Adrian. I should do that, shouldn’t I? And there are other things I can do.’
‘Are you trying to make me angry? You’re succeeding!’
‘Uncle Ben,' Simon said, 'we’re not letting women do anything dangerous. But they’re really useful carrying messages, more than I am with my motorbike. The soldiers don’t suspect them, they can go anywhere, and all they have to do is smile and be polite if they’re stopped.’
‘They have better memories too,’ Ted added. ‘They almost never write anything down. We’ve got one girl who writes things down in Latin in her school notebook and then translates when she delivers it.’
‘You make it sound like a game. I don’t want you and Adrian involved, though I obviously have nothing to say about that, but I do about Pam.’
In the silence that followed his outburst, he glared at them, daring them to defy him. He had spoken and, as always, expected them to comply. Sometimes they did, there were things that weren’t worth arguing about. And when they didn’t, they made sure he didn’t find out. Most of their victories had been small but important to them, because they couldn’t be his children forever. There hadn’t been anything like this before.
Then Abel said, ‘You’re outnumbered, Ben.’
They looked at each other for a moment, and then Ben leaned back in his chair, waved both hands in the air and laughed.
Miriam and Anne came in to say goodnight, a signal that it was time to go, almost curfew.
Everyone said goodnight and thank you, and Aunt Rezi said, ‘You know what we’re supposed to say when we part? Next year in Jerusalem? We’ll see you here next Friday, yes? Our little Jerusalem?’
Pam saw her mother look at her father and wondered if they would be gone by then. If only they’d said before, given her more time to think about it. About what? There was nothing to think about. Ted and Adrian need
ed her, so did other people, and she would find them.
The Green Police were a branch of the Gestapo. They worked with the Dutch police to keep order and helped the SS to round-up Jews.
5 Hannah, December 1940
Hannah bought her ticket, went out to the platform and sat on a bench to wait for the train. The winter wind swept so fiercely along the platform that people stood with their backs to it, shoulders hunched and arms folded across their chests for warmth. When one little girl was almost blown off her feet by a sudden gust, her mother pulled her arm up sharply to steady her. There were few trains, and they were unpredictable. People had learned to wait and to hope they’d get a seat when theirs came.
When it pulled in, she walked along the aisle until she came to an empty seat. Only after she sat down, did she notice the German soldier sitting near the window. He’d moved a leather pouch to make room for her and, after he bent to put it between his feet, he sat up and turned to her. He had taken off his cap when she sat down, and now he smoothed down his fine blond hair and smiled at her. Like many of the young soldiers, he was neatly-dressed, smooth-shaven and handsome.
‘Danke schön,’ she said. The German thank you had come so spontaneously that it surprised her as much as him.
‘Your German is very good,’ he said in Dutch.
‘Your Dutch is too.’
‘No no, just a few phrases. May I speak to you in German?’
Hannah looked around. People were talking or reading and probably couldn’t hear them over the noise of the rattling coach.
She nodded, and he said, ‘I admire how many people here speak my language so well. My superiors tell me the Dutch are really Germans at heart. Is this true, do you think?’
‘I don’t know, I’m not Dutch.’
‘Ah!’ He looked so pleased that she had to laugh. ‘So where do you come from? And how long have you been here?’
The Time Between Page 5