by Michael Dean
‘I am a passionate man,’ Hirschfeld replied. ‘Ouch! Go easy, Annemarie.’
The secretary laughed. ‘Perhaps you should take your own advice, meneer Hirschfeld. And at your age, too. There! You’re finished. Be careful as you put your shirt on. That stuff stains.’
After a late lunch of a cheese roll and glass of Karnemelk, taken at his desk, the Secretary-General finally and thankfully absorbed himself in his work. He made a couple of rapid calculations on a notepad, regarding shipbuilding workers’ wages.
A call came through from Rost van Tonningen. The NSBer screamed down the line. ‘I just wanted to let you know that your friend Ernst Cahn is in gaol in Scheveningen. Happy now? You satisfied, Hirschfeld?’
‘Neither happy nor satisfied, as it happens,’ Hirschfeld said. Scheveningen Prison, known mordantly as The Orange Hotel, was a torture centre used for opponents of the Reich. ‘Who’s dealing with him?’
‘We are, of course. The NSB. Three of my men were badly burned in that attack by a mob of your Jews. Some fiendish Jew substance was thrown over them; brewed in your estaminets. I’ve complained to Rauter. I’ve requested your arrest, Hirschfeld. You were there. Don’t deny it, you were seen.’
Hirschfeld glanced at his watch. He would phone Rauter when van Tonningen finished screaming, but if anybody was going to arrest him they would have done it by now. ‘I just happened to be there,’ Hirschfeld said, down the phone. ‘I was drinking a cup of coffee.’
‘But with Cahn!’ yelled van Tonningen, triumphantly. ‘With the Jew agitator Cahn, who’s already been thrown out of Germany!’ Hirschfeld could picture van Tonningen’s pinched little features, screwed up in hatred.
Hirschfeld sighed. ‘Yes, with Cahn. I was drinking coffee with Cahn. Is that it, van Tonningen? I have work to do.’
Van Tonningen rang off.
Hirschfeld rang Rauter. The Obergruppenführer did not disguise his annoyance at the NSB for provoking the unrest. They agreed it could interfere with the registration of Jewish traders. Hirschfeld sympathised. He helpfully volunteered the invented information that one of the Jews hospitalised at the incident had been prevented from registering for a Jewish trading licence, by his injuries.
‘The NSB are more trouble than they’re worth,’ concluded Hirschfeld, sadly. ‘It would be even worse if the WA were armed.’
Arming the WA was Rost van Tonningen’s pet project. Hirschfeld drip-dripped arguments against it, whenever the opportunity arose.
‘I know, I know,’ Rauter said. ‘Have a good day.’
He rang off. There was no mention of arresting Hirschfeld.
*
Peter Lambooy was Director of Production at the Nederlandsche Scheepsbouw Maatschappij (NSM), Amsterdam’s biggest shipbuilder. He had managed to get a microphone and a makeshift platform rigged up, so Hirschfeld could address the shipbuilding workers on the dockside, where the massive half-finished hulk of the cruiser Arminius loomed over them. Hirschfeld looked for Manny’s face in the blue-overalled mass, and failed to find it.
In the car, on the way there, he had rehearsed what he wanted to say, politely requesting the chauffeur, Hendrik, not to speak during the journey. The cold early evening air of the docks clarified his thoughts. Gathering himself to start, he scanned the faces below him. The mood, as he assessed it, was sullen, but not hostile. There was some subdued muttering when Lambooy introduced him, but no booing or catcalling.
‘I can realistically hold out to you today,’ he began, ‘ the prospect of secure continued employment for the rest of your working lives. You will be able to feed your families. A degree of comfort, even prosperity, will be yours. And it will be the lot of your children, too.’
The response to this was silence and a shuffling of boots – a good response, as Hirschfeld knew. The gnarled face of one old man seemed to leap out of the crowd at him. The battered old face showed a mix of hope and pleading. ‘I’m winning,’ Hirschfeld thought. I’m winning.
‘If – I say if - Amsterdam’s first major naval contract, the Arminius,’ he waved an arm at the ship’s bow, ‘is finished on time, other work will follow in a steady unbroken stream, with no end in sight. But let me be frank with you. Let me be blunt, my fellow Dutchmen …’ That last phrase was a mistake, it got a few angry murmurs. ‘Let me, as I say, be straightforward with you: If the first contract is late, or the work sub-standard, work will be transferred to other docks. Your future will be unclear. This port, here, I am sad to say, will become an empty shell. Would there then be other work for you, in Amsterdam? I doubt it.’ There were one or two murmurs at that, too, but less than the ‘Dutchmen’ remark had provoked. Hirschfeld now played his ace.
‘Your continued skilful work through these turbulent times is appreciated,’ he said, flatly. ‘I have pleasure in announcing an increase in the standard pay from twenty-two to twenty-four guilders per week. Your bonuses are going up in proportion.’ That got a cheer, and a burst of applause.
Hirschfeld then gave way to Peter Lambooy, who thanked him on behalf of the company.
*
That evening, as Hirschfeld and his sister were chewing their way through a silent dinner, there was strange thump from the direction of the front door. Else jumped up nervily, and went to see what it was. Her shattering scream brought Hirschfeld running. Through the open door, he saw two WA-men legging it in the distance.
On the doorstep was a massive bleeding lump of what Hirschfeld, in his confusion and alarm, thought was pork. He thought it was some anti-semitic prank. He stared at the pile of scraped-raw flesh, while Else clutched her fists to her breast, and let out long whooping screams, pausing only to draw gasping breaths.
The pile of skinned flesh sorted itself out in Hirschfeld’s mind as a human being. Or at least it had been. It was a while longer before the Secretary General recognised the flayed dead face of Ernst Cahn.
7
Just as Hans-Max Hirschfeld was ringing the buzzer for his secretary, to ask if Rauter had called, Manny was queuing outside Amsterdam Town Hall. Along with most of the other market traders, he was in the queue for Jews. His mood was light-hearted, as he relished the excuse to have a Monday morning free from his work at the shipyard and his stall at the market, in congenial company.
Karel Polak, the tyre man, was riding up and down the Jewish queue on a unicycle. His expression remained unremittingly glum, though many in the queue gave him a smile, to show they appreciated the entertainment. Most of the market traders apparently saw no reason why they should stop talking, even though they had to take time off from selling, to obtain new licences.
Tijpie, the hard-boiled egg woman, did not give up trade easily. She had brought a basket of eggs with her, and was selling them to the queue. Manny was talking to Marinus Glim. Glim had been a diamond cutter; but times were hard in the diamond industry, so he had become Hollander’s accomplice in the selling of tooth-pads. Manny was holding forth to him about sabotage in the shipyards:
‘The Moffen can’t check if every rivet’s been tightened. I tell you, if the Arminius ever puts to sea, it won’t get out of the harbour before it takes on water.’
‘You watch you don’t get caught, Manny,’ Hollander put in, over Marinus Glim’s shoulder.
‘Nah! There’s nothing to worry about.’
Professor Kokadorus was still chattering away about going to England. It was possible – just – braving the wild Narrow Sea in a small boat. But Kokadorus made it sound like taking a paddle boat out, on the artificial lake at Artis:
‘I’ll be away soon, boys. I’m off to fame and fortune. England’s the place to be, right now. Afternoon tea, that’s the thing for Kokadorus. Just like my friend Hein.’
Manny gave him a sharp look. ‘Hein Broersen?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘When’s he going, then?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘How long are we going to have to stand here?’ moaned Old Mother Bril. ‘I’ve got bunions, I have. How lon
g can it take to give you a piece of paper?’ Old Mother Bril wiped the back of her nose with a woollen glove with no fingers.
The queue inched forward.
Kokadorus was the first of the group around Manny to reach the table in the Town Hall vestibule, staffed by two Dutch women clerks, guarded by two Orpos with rifles. He showed his old licence – now declared invalid. The photograph he had brought with him was stamped into the new licence. Kokadorus signed the card across his photograph. He proudly showed his new trading licence to the other market traders.
‘Look at that! There’s a big J on my licence’
‘What does that stand for, then?’ said cross-eyed Ko, deadpan.
‘Jesus,’ said Manny, to general laughter. Then he was grabbed by the shoulder and spun round. ‘Oy!’ he shouted.
It was Joel Cosman. He looked serious. ‘I tried your room,’ he said. ‘I thought you might be here.’
‘What …?’
‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ Joel said. ‘They’re looking for us.’ He glanced at the head of the queue, at the two impassive, bored-looking Orpos.
‘I want to get my licence,’ Manny said.
Joel squeezed his arm. ‘You can forget about that. We’re both wanted for killing that Orpo. The one I hit on the bridge. Out of here. Now, Manny.’
*
‘You got anywhere you can go?’ Joel said, as they headed out of Dam Square, down the wide boulevard of Rokin.
‘I’ll have to go to Tinie’s.’
They cut east along Oude Hoog Straat towards the Jewish Quarter.
‘What about you?’ Manny said.
‘It’s best you don’t know where I am, Manny. But I tell you this: Our knokploeg’s. getting bigger and bigger. We’re not going to just sit and take it, son. We’re going to knock the Moffen about a bit.’
‘Let me join, Joel.’
‘I dunno, Manny. You’re a wanted man.’
Manny stopped, waving his arms indignantly. ‘So are you! You schmerul!’
Joel smiled. ‘Alright. You’re in.’
‘Promise?’
‘Oh, Manny. Grow up.’
‘Where you going? You staying somewhere near Tinie?’
‘No. I’m just going to see you settled.’
Manny was about to protest, when they saw the new red and white barricade sealing off the Jewish Quarter. This was at Kloveniers Burg Wal. There was a gatepost but it wasn’t manned.
‘Joel! What the hell …?’
‘I don’t know.’ He stopped, shaking his head. ‘We need false ID cards, mate. And pretty quickly.’
Even Joel seemed nervous as they walked through the gatepost. The Jewish Quarter was quieter than usual. Fewer traders had set out their stalls in the street, there were fewer passers-by.
‘People are staying indoors,’ Manny murmured. ‘Keeping their heads down.’
‘Yes,’ Joel said, through gritted teeth. ‘In our own city.’
Tinie’s door opened before Joel and Manny got to the top of the stairs. She launched herself at Manny, winding her arms round his neck, pulling him into her so tightly he was breathless.
‘Oh, Tinie! Tinie!’ There were tears in his eyes. .
She held him at arm’s length, looking him up and down. Still gripping Manny, she looked at Joel, as if in mute appeal to him, to protect Manny.
The three of them went into Tinie’s dark box of a room.
‘Can Manny stay for a while?’ Joel said. ‘The Moffen are looking for him.’
‘Of course he can,’ Tinie said.
Joel strode to the curtained-off niche. As he pulled back the curtain, the ‘silent’ toilet was exposed. He peered into the higher of two open-topped boxes, fixed against the wall. They were meant as beds for toddlers, when the tenements were built, at the turn of the century . It was full of Tinie’s clothes. So was the bottom one.
‘Lucky for you you’re so little,’ he said to Manny.
‘Thanks a bunch. Even I can’t get in there.’
‘I’ll get Lard to come and deepen the space underneath.’ Joel nodded at Tinie.
‘Lard Zilverberg’s our carpenter,’ he explained. ‘Among other things.’
Joel pulled Tinie and Manny to him and embraced them both. He left without another word.
Lard Zilverberg arrived within the hour, with his father’s carpentry tools in a worn leather bag. He worked quickly, making as little noise as possible.
Manny asked him if he knew anything about the sealing off of the Jewish Quarter.
‘The barriers are just bits of wood at the moment,’ Lard said. ‘A child could get over them. It won’t stay like that, though. They’re just starting to patrol the perimeter. There are crossing points at Nieuwe Herengracht, Rapenburg and Kloveniers Burg Wal. Probably a few more, somewhere.’
‘The one at Kloveniers Burg Wal was open when Joel and I came through,’ Manny said.
Lard nodded, still hammering on his hands and knees. ‘Most of them are open at the moment,’ he said. ‘Joel and Ben don’t expect it to stay that way. We’ve heard the Moffen are asking the non-Jews in the Quarter to leave.’
When Lard had finished his work, the bottom of the lower bunk-boxes could be taken out, letting Manny slide into a hollowed-out space underneath it, just big enough to lie flat in. Lard gave it a quick final inspection, then left. Manny looked into his new home. He had become an onderduiker – a diver; a man in hiding, a man who lived down a hole.
Tinie interrupted his thoughts, her pixie face a picture of concentrated practicality. ‘Tell me what you want from your room. I’ll go over and get it.’
‘I don’t need anything.’
‘Oh, Manny! You do! You need clothes. You need … soap.’
Manny looked at her, his face softening as he took her in. ‘It’s too dangerous, Tinie …’
‘No, it’s not. Even if the Moffen have found out your address, even if they’re waiting, I’ll say I’ve just come to see you.’
‘OK. Get me some … clothes.’ Manny vaguely indicated the threadbare baggy flannels and long jacket he was wearing at the moment. His high-crowned cap was on Tinie’s tiny round table. He gave her the key to his room.
‘I’ll get your drawing materials as well.’
Manny failed to stop a look of delight sweeping across his face. ‘No, don’t … Oh, OK. That would be wonderful. I’ll draw you. It’s ages since I’ve drawn you.’
For nearly twenty minutes, they chattered away about how many drawings Manny had done of Tinie, when they were drawn, how old Tinie had been at the time, and whether the drawings were any good – Tinie said they were, Manny said they weren’t. Their sentences fell over each other like puppies playing. Tinie, especially, rarely got to the end of what she wanted to say before Manny interrupted her.
‘I’ve got to go, ‘ Tinie wailed eventually, and scooted out of the room, while Manny was still talking.
She was back quickly, with one of his linen laundry bags. The first item which fell out, with a thud on the table, was Laws of the Netherlands.
‘Keep your hand in,’ she said. ‘One day, you’ll be able to finish your law studies. You’ll be Amsterdam’s leading lawyer. And I’m going to be so proud of you.’
He hugged her. ‘We could live in a big house near Artis,’ he said, without thinking, without realising he had just proposed.
She made no reply, but pulled some of his clothes out of the linen bag. Then she carefully took out his drawing pencils and plenty of paper. She had not brought the paints.
He wondered at her. As ever, she had got it exactly right. It would be difficult to conceal his painting equipment – for a start the oils gave off a pungent smell in the badly ventilated tenement rooms.
‘I brought these, too, she said, pulling out pages filled with his tiny, neat handwriting.
‘I know where you hid them!’
‘Tinie!’
They were drafts and re-drafts of Manny’s Snowball Letters - open letters, passed from
hand to hand, in the first days of the Nazi occupation. Manny was one of many writing them. Some were banda’d, though most, like Manny’s, were handwritten. They called for resistance, often predicting what life under the Moffen was going to be like. One of Manny’s Snowball Letters, the one he was proudest of, had accurately predicted rationing and labour transits to German factories.
Manny smiled as he read some of his own early drafts, as if he had never seen them before: At the top of most of them he had drawn a geus – a beggar. That was what the Spanish occupiers had called the Dutch resistance, in the sixteenth century - Geuzen. The Dutch had worn the name with pride then; their successors, those who fought the Nazis, adopted it with equal pride now.
‘Tinie, it’s dangerous to keep these here,’ he said. ‘I’ll destroy them.’
‘No you won’t! They’re terrific, Manny.’
‘Oh, thank you!’
‘Listen. Either they’ll find you here, or they won’t. If they find you, the Snowball Letters will hardly make things any worse.’
‘Alright.’ Manny folded his papers up and pushed them into his trousers pocket.
‘I want you to keep these, too.’ Tinie held up two drawings she had unpinned from the wall of Manny’s room.
‘Oh, you! You shouldn’t have! You’re wonderful!.’
Tinie gave her toothy, urchin grin. ‘I know! I know!’
The pencil and charcoal drawings were of Professor Meijers and Professor Cleveringa. Meijers had been Manny’s law professor at Leiden. A leading jurist, he was the most senior of the Jewish faculty the Nazis had dismissed from their jobs.
Manny had been among the student leaders who had gone to Professor Cleveringa – also a law professor, a Christian - to ask him to lead a protest, at the dismissals. Cleveringa had addressed the entire student body, at the time Meijers was due to lecture. Speaking in a flat unemotional voice, he asserted the Rule of Law, against brute force. He praised Meijers as an individual – a man of distinguished achievement, a man of worth. He said the dismissal of Jewish faculty because of their religion was illegal, and morally wrong.
The Nazis came for him the next day – he had his bags packed. Manny and the Leiden students spent the next forty-eight hours without sleep, fuelled by constant cups of coffee, typing out copies of Cleveringa’s speech. Then they went on strike. The Nazis closed Leiden University, in reprisal.