by Michael Dean
*
Staff records were kept in a card-index in a room off the typing pool. As he walked along the corridor again, he could hear, before he saw, that no work was going on. He put his head round the door. The typing pool was deserted.
He found the Employment Card of Hendrik Vandenputte, chauffeur, and prayed aloud that his home address would be within walking distance. It was. Hirschfeld left the ministry. There were troops on the streets now - SS. They were opening fire at passers-by at random, threatening to shoot everybody they came across, if work was not resumed by tomorrow at the latest.
Hirschfeld made his way cautiously along, ducking into doorways. He reached the Singel canal. A young woman hurried toward him, pushing a child in a pushchair. She was holding her arm; blood was oozing into her coat.
‘Can I help you?’ Hirschfeld called out. ‘Have you been hit?’
‘It’s alright. I live just here,’ the woman gasped. ‘It’s only a flesh wound.’
Hirschfeld lifted the pushchair over two steps up to the doorway of a block of flats.
‘Thank you,’ said the young woman. ‘They’re mad, these strikers. What do they hope to achieve? If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have been shot.’
‘I suppose so,’ Hirschfeld said. He touched his Fedora, then made his way cautiously down Spiegel Straat, where Hendrik lived.
As he rang the doorbell of Hendrik’s flat, he realised he knew nothing about the man who had driven him around for two years. Hendrik could be in the NSB, or even the WA. But Hendrik was the only way he could get to Westerbork, right now, in the middle of a strike. And there was no time to lose. Bruyns had said the hostages from the Jewish Quarter were being shipped out of Holland within twenty-four hours of arrival at
Westerbork, to avoid them becoming a focus for discontent.
A tall, dignified-looking old woman opened the door. She smiled at him.
‘Dag, mevrouw Vandenputte. Ik ben …’
‘I know who you are. Hendrik! Meneer Hirschfeld is here.’
Hendrik appeared behind her, stroking his white moustache, an impressive figure even in a cardigan and carpet slippers. ‘Come in, meneer Hirschfeld. Do come in. Please take a seat, make yourself comfortable, do.’
Hirschfeld came into a small, light flat with huge curtainless windows, overlooking the canal. The furniture was reproduction Biedermeier or French Empire. There were ornaments, bric-a brac and family photographs everywhere. The painting on the wall was a Gerrit Dou reproduction. He declined offers of coffee, beer, milk, biscuits or cake.
‘It’s urgent, Hendrik. I need to get to Westerbork camp, in Drenthe. I need you to drive me there. My nephew, Manny, is there under an assumed name. His girlfriend is a prisoner, too. I have a plan to get them out. I may be able to get at least one of his knokploeg out, with them. Maybe more.’
His life was now in Hendrik’s hands.
A clock ticked heavily in the little flat. Old Hendrik drew himself up to his full, considerable height. He was standing to attention. It could have been comic – but it wasn’t.
‘I want you to know something, meneer,’ he said, finally. ‘I was with the 41st , fighting outside Nijmegen. They tried to tell me I was too old, but I joined them anyway. We were against the best the Germans had – 9th Panzer Division. We were outnumbered – oh, we were so outnumbered, meneer. And no air support, you see. Not to mention no armour and no anti-tank guns. But we gave them such a fight, meneer. They won’t forget us in a hurry.’
Hirschfeld nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak. He remembered the successive pacifist governments that had so weakened the Dutch army.
‘When our colonel finally surrendered, he offered his swagger stick to their general. I was there, a prisoner. I saw it all. And their general gave the stick back to him, and he said “I will not break the stick of a brave fighter like you.” And our colonel took his stick back, and he broke it over his own knee. And he looked their general in the eye. And their general saluted him. He saluted him, meneer. For the fight we had made of it.’
Hendrik’s wife spoke. ‘Oh, get on with it, you old fool! Drive meneer Hirschfeld where he wants to go.’
16
Towards the end of the journey from Amsterdam, the lorries carrying the hostages from the Jewish Quarter drove through a bleak, flat landscape, dotted with occasional withered spruce and dusty scrub. Then the meagre soil increasingly gave way to sand. Peering through the slats of the lorry, Manny saw sand-dunes - white sand to which the scrub clung. When they finally stopped, and he jumped down from the lorry, his first sight of the camp was three scholarly-looking Jews in black suits, wheeling wheelbarrows full of sand.
The camp was obviously new, at least in its present function. Prisoners, guarded by Dutch SS, were still laying rolls of barbed wire round the perimeter. Manny knew Westerbork had been built by the Dutch government, in the thirties, as a holding point for Jews escaping Germany for Holland.
And now the Jews were back, expelled from their haven. Going in the other direction? Where? Manny didn’t think about it. He, and Joel and Ben, who had travelled with him, assumed they were going to be here for a while, at least.
He wiped his spectacles on his shirt, and peered round. It was like a gold-miners’ camp, in the last century. He had seen pictures of the Klondike in boyhood comics. But there was no gold here, just sand. As he stood by the lorry, it blew into his hair and face. When he, Joel and Ben were allotted bunks, there was sand in the straw when he put his blanket down. It had even blown into the first meal he ate, that evening.
The canteen looked like a Wild West log cabin. Inside, the prisoners ate at long trestle tables. The overwhelming majority were men, but there were some women, and a few children. The children, even more than the women, made him think of Tinie and their future child, who he would probably never see. He assumed Tinie was safe in the hideout. He knew old meneer Zilverberg, Lard’s father, would look after her. They all knew about Lard’s heroic death. Manny hoped Tinie would be a consolation to the old man.
The children here, Manny noticed, looked neglected and filthy, with matted hair. Although the new arrivals still had the clothes they had come with, most of the prisoners were wearing an assortment of ill-fitting, grimy overalls. Everybody looked dirty. He had already realised that hygiene was going to be a problem.
At a distant table, Manny saw the Jewish Council leaders, Abraham Asscher and Professor David Cohen. They were sitting together, blank-eyed. He didn’t recognise anybody else in the canteen, which surprised him.
The meal consisted of watery vegetable soup, then a tiny portion of fatty stew, with marrowfat peas and potatoes. It was doled out from clattering pans by Jewish Police, who walked up and down the aisles. As Manny began to eat, a gnarled little man in the green overalls and peaked cap of the Jewish Police, sat down next to him
‘You’re new here, aren’t you? Just arrived? I’m Aaron Stokel.’
The elf-like fellow solemnly shook hands with all of them. Then he shouted to them over the din of people eating and talking – half a shift, the rest would eat later. The conversation was in German, the lingua franca of Westerbork.
‘Make yourselves useful,’ he told them, ‘that’s my advice to you.’
‘How?’ Joel enquired, blandly, speaking across Manny.
Stodel shrugged. ‘Depends what you can do.’ He gave a crooked smile, showing broken teeth. He addressed Manny: ‘What can you do?’
‘He’s a philosopher,’ said Joel, impishly.
Manny shrugged. ‘I can draw.’
Aaron Stodel was so impressed, his jaw dropped open, dribbling his soup down his overalls. ‘That could save your life, my friend,’ he said. ‘They’re going to need signs painted. I’ll tell Franck about you.’
‘Who’s he?’ Ben Bril put in.
‘Oberdienstleiter Erwin Franck. Head of the Camp Service Corps. He really runs the place. The commandant, Deppner, spends most of the time fucking his secretary. Occasionally, he r
ides round the camp on his bicycle – always does that when there’s a transport. You’ll see Deppner this evening. He comes to all the concerts. Laughs at all the jokes, especially the ones about him. Loves music. Any of you play an instrument?’
Manny, Joel and Ben nodded no.
‘Shame. Everyone reckons the camp orchestra are safe. They’ll see out the war. I don’t suppose any of you are on the list?’
‘What list?’ Joel Cosman said.
‘I don’t know what list, it’s just a list. If you are on the list, they can’t transport you. Everybody claims to be on it, most of them don’t get believed. Some say Erwin Franck can get you on the list, some say that’s rubbish, he just says that to make himself important.’
‘This Erwin Franck,’ Manny said. ‘The one with the power. Was he the clown who was watching us get off the lorry? The huge lump of flesh in the black army coat?’
Their informant grimaced, looking round to see if anyone had heard. ‘Yes, and if he hears you talking like that, you’re dead,’ Aaron Stodel said. ‘You’re gonna need to watch your mouth, son, if you want to get out of this alive.’
‘He had a yellow star,’ Ben Bril said, softly. ‘Franck did. On his armband.’
Stodel nodded. ‘He’s a German Jew.’
There was silence for a minute, in their part of the long bench, filled by the roar of chatter around them. Aaron Stodel measured Ben Bril with a long look, looking past Manny and Joel to do it.
‘I’ve written a letter to my daughter,’ he said. ‘I’ll give it to you after the meal. Keep it, will you? Deliver it when you can.’
‘You mean me?’ Ben Bril said. ‘You talking to me? Why me?’
‘Because you will survive.’
Manny felt a cold chill in his heart.
‘How do you know?’ Ben said.
‘I don’t know how I know, but I know. I can tell, by looking at you. Will you take the letter? I’m on a transport first thing tomorrow.’
‘Yes. Yes, of course I will.’
*
Tinie Emmerik was in the lorry which arrived at Westerbork after the one carrying Manny, Joel Cosman and Ben Bril. There were two other women, travelling with her. She had told them she was pregnant, and they protected her like second mothers. One of them introduced herself as Sara Vliestra, a dancer at the Tip Tip. She told Tinie her story: When the SS burst into her home, in the Jewish Quarter, their officer ordered her to strip, which she did. She then seized the pistol from his holster and shot him through the heart.
Tinie’s other protector was Evelyn Polet. She had been arrested for hitting one of the soldiers who was beating her five-year old son. Evelyn had managed to bring in some money, hidden in her underwear. She bribed one of the Jewish Police to let the three of them share a three-tier bunk – with Tinie tucked up safely in the bottom one.
Evelyn was a capable type, the type who knows the ropes, the type who always knows what’s going on. Tinie had started to look out for Manny as soon as the lorry stopped. Evelyn, with great gentleness, told her not to get her hopes up. She knew the hostages from the raid were being moved out quickly – instantly, if the Moffen could manage it.
As soon as they were settled in, Sara and Evelyn took Tinie to the camp hospital. One of the prisoners was one of Holland’s leading gynaecologists, E. A. Hartog. He examined Tinie. He said it was early days, naturally, but she should come to term, with no problems. Evelyn asked for extra food for Tinie. Hartog said he would put her on the list to get a tomato every day, like the hospital inmates did.
By the time they finished talking to Hartog, the three women just made the second sitting, in the log cabin canteen. Afterwards, they stood outside, shivering in the chill, discussing what do with their evening. While she talked, Tinie was admiring the yellowing lupins which dipped and stretched in the fading light of the sunset, as far as the delousing barracks. They had learned that there was a lecture on sociology by a professor, this evening, or there was the camp concert. They decided on the concert.
On the way there, they saw a prisoner being marched along, held by the arms by a Dutch SS guard on either side of him. He had an armband with S on it. They were heading toward the penal barracks, which was not far from the female huts.
‘I wonder what the S stands for?’ Sara mused.
‘Could be Strafe – punishment,’ Evelyn said.
‘Typical Moffen,’ said Tinie. ‘Everything has to be labelled.’ It could have been Manny talking. Tinie blushed.
Manny’s given me confidence, she thought. He’s made me believe in myself. She looked round for him again, as they settled down in the back row, to watch the concert.
*
The concert was held in a large room in the Administration Building. The front rows had been taken by the prisoners who had eaten at the first sitting, and so got there first. These included Manny, Joel and Ben, all anticipating their evening’s entertainment.
They were not disappointed. The commandant, SS-Sturmbannführer Erich Deppner, gave a brief introduction. He was accompanied by a plumply buxom blonde lady, obviously Jewish, who Manny guessed was the secretary whose services their informant, Aaron Stodel, had mentioned. Stodel had told them that the cabaret artists, and the male choir, would be invited back to the commandant’s villa, just outside the barbed wire, for drinks after the performance.
A comedian appeared on the make-shift stage at the front. Manny thought it was the same one he had seen at the Tip Top, Jakob Goubitz, but he wasn’t sure. He was a lot thinner, and he was speaking German. Most of his jokes were about the camp commandant.
‘Bärbel wanted more money,’ he said, in a serious tone, staring at the secretary, who laughed and pouted. ‘She’d been working hard, eh boys?’ More laughter. ‘So she went to Herr Deppner. And she said “I want a rise.” And Herr Deppner said, “Why not,
I’ve already got one!”’
SS- Sturmbannführer Deppner doubled up with laughter. His secretary elbowed him in the ribs, then joined in.
The evening culminated with the male voice choir. By special request, they sang one of the Sturmbannführer’s favourites, the Yiddish classic Bei Mir Bist Du Schayn. They sang as if their lives depended on it, which they did. Certainly, none of them were on the transport which left early next morning. This was an extra trainload, put on to help clear the influx of arrestees from the Jewish Quarter raid.
Aaron Stodel was on it., as he had said he would be. The commandant gave them all a cheery wave, as he rode up and down the tracks, the length of the train, on his bicycle. He shouted out ‘Goodbye, goodbye.’ The effect was curiously like a circus act.
Some of the deportees waved back. Among those who didn’t was Ben Bril, who knew he was going to a place called Bergen-Belsen, but not what awaited him there.
*
Hirschfeld’s chauffeur, Hendrik Vandenputte, had several chauffeur’s outfits. The one he had selected for the drive to Westerbork was a pearl grey tunic, which buttoned diagonally from shoulder to waist, pearl grey breeches and black boots. From a distance, it looked like a field-grey Wehrmacht outfit. Hendrik had wordlessly attached a swastika pennant to the bonnet of the car.
‘Where on earth did you get that pennant?’ Hirschfeld asked.
‘I pinched it, meneer. You never know what might come in useful.’
Hirschfeld had enjoyed the drive through the tip of Gelderland, then through Overijssel, into the province of Drenthe. Despite the clear cold of the day, he had wound the window down, tightening his muffler round his throat.
Coming from the direction of Westerbork village, they drove along next to the railway lines for a while. The dead-flat dry sand struck Hirschfeld as lunar, certainly other-worldly.
The commandant’s whitewashed villa came into sight. There was a freight train at the sidings next to it. Its engine was taking on coal. Hendrik slowed the Mercedes to a crawl. Hirschfeld saw a piece of cardboard tied to the side of one of the freight cars. Someone had scrawled MAUTHAUSEN on it, in
wobbly capital letters.
A stream of prisoners were being loaded into the freight-cars by Dutch SS guards and Jewish Police. If they had been two minutes earlier, Hirschfeld would have seen Manny and Joel Cosman among them. As it was, they were already in one of the closed freight-cars.
A grinning figure in an SS uniform was riding up and down beside the tracks on a bicycle. A huge fellow in a black cap and a black army coat was staring at the car. Hirschfeld noticed the Star of David on his armband. He looked about to stop them, or challenge them, but a brown gun dog ran up to him, distracting him.
At the main gate, Hendrik, primed by Hirschfeld, said ‘Dr Hirschfeld to see Herr Deppner. We are expected.’ They were given directions to the commandant’s office, in the Administration Building. Hendrik waited in the car, while Hirschfeld climbed stiffly out, blinked a few times against the sudden sunshine, then went in.
In the commandant’s outer office, a buxom woman in a low-necked blouse greeted him in imperfect Dutch-accented German. She batted her eyelids at him, then asked him, in a friendly enough way, if there was anything she could do for him. Hirschfeld said he was here to see the commandant.
‘Is he expecting you?’
‘Because of the unrest in Amsterdam, I was unable to give Herr Deppner as much warning as I would have liked. But I represent Obergruppenführer Rauter. The matter is urgent.’ Hirschfeld was speaking in German; she would think he was German.
She glanced through the window at the Mercedes, with its fluttering swastika. ‘Herr Deppner is supervising the departure of a transport. But he will be pleased to see you, I’m sure. I am mevrouw Aalsvel, by the way, Herr Deppner’s secretary. I’ll tell him you’re here. Dr …er …’
‘Hirschfeld.’
‘Hirschfeld. Yes.’