The Sisters of Auschwitz

by Roxane van Iperen

  They become friends with other students visiting the house and for nights on end they discuss the ominous political climate in neighbouring countries. Among their friends are Gerrit Kastein, a young doctor, oboist Haakon Stotijn, his wife Mieke and Bob Brandes, economics student, son of a famous family of architects from The Hague.

  In the summer of 1938, when Lien is starring in a revue and has temporarily rented a room on Leidseplein in Amsterdam, her younger sister, Janny, often comes by after work to share a meal. One evening when Janny visits Lien, she meets Bob Brandes, who teasingly challenges her political views. Bob is on the board of the Social Democratic Fraternity and works in Amsterdam as an intern at communist publishing house Pegasus. He enrages Janny to the extent that she starts throwing pillows at the height of the discussion to silence this know-all. But when a few weeks later Lien gives her the keys to her room in The Hague, she soon starts using them to see more of Bob. ‘This place is like a left-wing brothel,’ one of the other tenants mutters as yet another relationship in the house is sealed.

  Mrs Brandes, Bob’s mother, gets wind of the affair and calls that nice pianist who once gave a concert in their front parlour, Eberhard Rebling, to see if he would have a word with his friend Bob – that girl from a dubious merchant milieu is absolutely below her son. Eberhard listens smilingly, calms Mrs Brandes and assures her the Brilleslijper family has some fine daughters indeed. In January 1939, Bob takes Janny out to the cinema in The Hague, accompanies her home afterwards, and never leaves again.

  Bob’s parents refuse to give their consent to the intended marriage. They think both Janny’s social background and her Jewish descent are too much of a risk in times like these. Though saddened by their attitude, Janny follows the example of her headstrong parents: in September 1939, almost twenty-three years old, she marries Bob, twenty-six years old, from her parental home in Amsterdam. Without father and mother Brandes, but in the presence of Bob’s sisters, including Aleid, with whom Janny gets along well. Joseph butters sandwiches for everyone, Fietje has returned from hospital and Janny, radiant, her round belly impossible to ignore, is the centre of attention. Bob, mischievously, has placed an announcement of their marriage in the newspaper in The Hague and as a result, his parents are flooded with congratulations from their distinguished circle of acquaintances.

  A month after the wedding, on 10 October 1939, Robert Brandes is born. Janny, Bob and the baby move into two rooms on Bazarlaan in The Hague with a landlady, Miss Tonnie de Bruin, who solicits on Prinsenstraat – an open secret to everyone.

  The young couple is over the moon but needs to put food on the table too. Before she got pregnant, Janny worked behind a knitting machine in a factory. She was given a small maternity allowance, but this is shrinking fast. Bob quits his studies and enters the civil service; Janny stays at home to look after little Robbie.

  The family quickly expands: in winter 1939, their first man in hiding moves in. Alexander de Leeuw is an eminent lawyer from Amsterdam, board member of the Dutch Communist Party, CPN, and director of Pegasus Publishers, where he met Bob. De Leeuw is known for his surly demeanour but also for his fierce battle against fascism and widely read publications. As a well-known communist and CPN lawyer, he has become a target in an increasingly hostile Amsterdam.

  Many years of austerity policy by the Colijn government have not helped the country overcome the economical crisis. On the contrary: there is hardly any recovery and the persistent scarcity causes tensions to rise. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Jews and socialists try to escape Germany and countries further east, fleeing the orgy of violence unleashed in the Kristallnacht in November 1938, when Jews were lynched in the streets. The Dutch government, for fear of insulting Germany, has shut the borders for refugees, who are marked ‘undesirable elements’. Besides, reasoned Colijn, a mass influx of Jewish refugees would only aggravate the existing anti-Semitism in the country.

  ‘To be avoided is anything conducive to permanent settlement in our already densely populated country, seeing as a further invasion of foreign elements would be damaging to the preservation of the character of the Dutch tribe. The Government is of the opinion that our confined territory should in principle remain reserved for our own population,’ the Dutch government wrote in 1938.

  The Dutch soil, too, proves fertile for a scapegoat and public displays of hatred increase. In the winter of 1939, various cinemas in Amsterdam show Olympia, Leni Riefenstahl’s documentary, commissioned by Adolf Hitler, on the 1936 Berlin Olympics – a long, drawn-out idealization of athletic Aryan bodies. The film attracts young and unruly DNP (Dutch Nazi Party) members, and fights erupt in the city between groups of Fascists and young leftist and Jewish men.

  When Alexander de Leeuw even stops feeling safe in his favourite pub, Café Reynders on Leidseplein, he starts looking for a place to hide. In Janny and Bob’s upstairs flat in The Hague, he sleeps in the attic and quietly washes himself in the room of newly born baby Robbie. Janny is struck by his introversion and awkwardness. When, one morning, Lientje pays a surprise visit and finds De Leeuw breakfasting in Janny’s living room, they stare at each other in shock. De Leeuw mutters something, grabs his stuff and, head down, rushes past Lien to the attic. She raises her eyebrows enquiringly towards her sister, but Janny ostentatiously presses her lips and shrugs her shoulders, as if she has never seen the man before.

  When, on 10 May 1940 at 3.55 a.m., German armoured trains cross the Dutch border and Luftwaffe squadrons enter the airspace, it comes as no surprise to Janny. It is the day when the illusion of Dutch neutrality is shattered. The day when Queen Wilhelmina issues the following proclamation:

  Although our country has, with utmost conscientiousness, maintained strict neutrality all these months, and had no other intention than to maintain this neutrality firmly and in all its consequences, German troops without any warning made a sudden attack upon our territory last night. This happened despite the solemn promise that the neutrality of our country would be respected so long as we maintained it ourselves.

  The first few days Janny and Bob still hope the Brits will drive the Germans out, but nothing happens. From their small house on Bazarlaan, they can almost touch the royal stables of Noordeinde Palace, so when, on 13 May, they see a convoy of expensive cars leave, it really hits home: the Netherlands are occupied.

  That night, when Robbie is asleep, Janny and Bob discuss the situation. They know the stories of refugees from the east, the traumas of those who fought in Spain. They are aware of the hostility in their country in the run-up to this moment. And yet they are determined: they shall resist fascism. Although they are not naive about possible consequences, they cannot possibly imagine what lies ahead.

  A few days later, when Janny is taking Robbie for a walk in his pram and suddenly the air raid siren goes off, she runs through the streets of The Hague searching for help. Ominous blaring fills the airspace, circles around her, low and heavy at first, to then shoot up – again and again, as fear ties a knot in her stomach and paving stones shoot by beneath her feet. She spots a familiar façade, rings the doorbell at acquaintances of the Brandes family and, gasping for breath, asks them for shelter. Ashamed, but resolute, they show Janny and her baby the door.

  2

  The Brown Plague

  The first one they lose, after the capitulation, is Anita, a cheerful young woman who lives with them on Bankastraat.

  On 14 May 1940, Lien, Eberhard and their friends are by the window in their front room, silently staring at the black plumes of smoke above Rotterdam in the distance – a minor mistake by the Germans, who failed to call back their airplanes when the Dutch capitulated.

  Suddenly, they hear someone moaning on the first floor. Lien hurries up the stairs with Eberhard following, and they find Anita on her bed, white as chalk, limp, a glass tube by her side.

  The girl had fled Germany because of increasingly violent manifestations of anti-Semitism, and she had once told Lien about the dose of arseni
c her father, a Jewish doctor, had given her when they said goodbye. Although the story, again, confirmed the gravity of the situation in Germany, they had also thought the gesture somewhat dramatic. Until now. ‘Rather dead than in Nazi hands,’ Anita’s father had emphasized.

  In the rest of the Netherlands, many agree; after the capitulation is announced on the news, hundreds of people take their own lives.

  And yet, public life fairly quickly resumes its course; people go to work, shops are open and newspapers published. Janny and Lien regularly visit their parents and younger brother in Amsterdam, and there, too, everything looks deceptively normal. Inspired by the commune in The Hague, Bob’s sister Aleid starts something similar in Amsterdam: a community house on Nieuwe Herengracht, close to the botanical gardens, filled with many of the sisters’ mutual friends. It isn’t until they visit Aleid, and find hardly any of their friends there, that they realize some already have one foot in the resistance: they stay here and there, and only come home occasionally to collect some things.

  Janny and Lien learn about the lists now circulating with names of volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, leftist youth, social democrats, communists and other anti-Fascists who the Germans are keeping an eye on. To draw them up, they depend heavily on input from the fifth column: citizens sympathizing with fascism, keen to contribute and share long-cherished information – varying from Dutch entrepreneurs exposing their ‘red’ customers, to German maids telling on the families whose dirty laundry they took care of for years. Janny worries that she, Bob and their friends might already be registered somewhere, and discusses the lists with her husband. But he simply shrugs: ‘If we are, we will find out eventually.’

  And so begins the waiting.

  On 29 May 1940, Reich Commissioner Arthur Seyss-Inquart gives his first speech as the highest official of the occupying forces, at the Hall of Knights in Dutch parliament. The Austrian lawyer with slick hair and small round spectacles emphasizes the Dutch people have nothing to fear from the Germans:

  We have not come here to oppress and destroy a national character and to deprive a country of its freedom [. . .] This time it was not about national character nor money nor freedom. The goods of this land were never under threat. This time the question was whether the Dutch would be abused as a stepping stone for an attack against the faith, the freedom and the lives of the German people [. . .] Those are the words I have to say to the Dutch people today, as I take over the highest governmental authority of the Netherlands. We have come with force of arms reluctantly; we want to be protectors and promoters to then remain friends; all of this, though, in the light of the higher duty, we, Europeans, have, because we have to build a new Europe, where national honour and collective labour are the guiding principles.

  The entire country sighs with relief. Things will be different here than they are in the eastern occupied countries: the Germans will at least show respect for this civilized Western country. Hitler has always been clear that he considers the Slavic people as rubbish that needs to be removed from his backyard, where he wants to create Lebensraum, and he hopes his Germanic brothers in the West will help him to achieve this goal. The Netherlands has not interfered with the German oppression policy and is offered mild treatment in return – or so the Dutch people hope. Even the German soldiers turn out not to be that bad: in bright summer weather you can see them out and about on the streets, and on Scheveningen beach, strangely enough, they enjoy their hot chocolate with whipped cream.

  In the commune on Bankastraat there’s a sense of optimism too: surely one of the Allied superpowers will quickly defeat Hitler, the question is merely if it will take one year or two. Either way, there will be very few consequences for Jewish people in the Netherlands; they are fully integrated into society and the rest of the country will not allow anything to happen to them.

  When Lien, bright and breezy, drops by her sister’s house for coffee, Janny does not agree with her positive story. She is remarkably absent and curt.

  ‘You should stop coming here this often.’

  She says it even before offering her sister anything to drink. Lien thinks of the strange men she keeps seeing in the small apartment, the illegal newspapers, the secret meetings. Surely Janny trusts her own sister?

  ‘Is it Eberhard?’

  Lien can barely say it. She narrows her eyes, tilts her head and looks at her younger sister.

  Lien knows Janny does not see shades of grey in this occupation – she believes each new day with the Germans inside the country borders is one too many. And Eberhard is a German.

  ‘What makes you think that? I trust Eberhard like I trust my own family.’

  Janny presses Lien against her chest and sighs. Then she holds her sister, her arms outstretched, looking her straight in the eye.

  ‘This is a dangerous place, Lientje. You have no idea what those Krauts are capable of. Trust me: the less often you’re here, the better. For both of us.’

  Shortly after this conversation, Lien is outside the dance studio, waiting for the next class, when a strange man approaches. She is startled when he starts speaking to her, but then recognizes his voice. He’s one of her Eastern-Jewish students; he has shaven his long beard and corkscrew curls, and is unrecognizable with his smooth and pale face and new clothes. He hardly dares to look at Lien. With great difficulty she manages a smile and cheerfully starts the lesson, but the rest of the afternoon her stomach is tight and her limbs feel so heavy she can barely lift them.

  One night in October Bob returns home from work with a form. It is an Aryan declaration, on which all civil servants in the Netherlands are obliged to fill in whether they or their family are Jewish.

  As soon as they have put Robbie to bed, they sit down together and carefully read the declaration:

  The undersigned: . . .

  occupation: . . .

  position: . . .

  born on . . . at . . .

  living in . . .

  declare, that to the best of his/her knowledge neither he himself/she herself, nor his/her wife/husband/fiancé(e), nor one of his/(her)/their parents or grandparents has ever been part of the Jewish community of faith.

  It is known to the undersigned, that he/she, should the above declaration prove false, is subject to summary dismissal.

  . . ., 1940.

  (signature)

  They let their eyes rest on the paper at the last sentence. Then they look at each other. It has begun. Bob says nothing, makes a wry face, lifts the paper by a corner, opens the lid of the round iron stove and slowly lowers the form into the fire.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Janny asks.

  ‘I am not filling in any declarations and neither are you. I want nothing to do with this, and we’ll see what happens when we get there.’

  One month after Bob has lit the fire with his Aryan declaration, everyone in the civil service who is known to be Jewish is fired. Among them is the father of their friend Tilly, President of the Supreme Court, Lodewijk Visser. Not one of his colleagues objects.

  Janny and Bob are as yet unaware what the tightly organised registration of Jews is the prelude to, and they don’t fret about the declaration. Much more interesting are the encouraging signs of resistance around them. They hear about dozens of pupils at Vossius, a prominent grammar school in Amsterdam, going on strike and about the civil disobedience by Professor Rudolph Cleveringa of Leiden University. Students illegally distribute thousands of copies of Cleveringa’s speech throughout the Netherlands. Janny and Lien, too, get a copy. Cleveringa, like Bob, is part of the very small group of civil servants in the country who decide not to sign the Aryan declaration – in his case in solidarity with two Jewish colleagues, professors Meijers and David, who have just been fired. Everyone refusing to fill in the form, however, is in danger of losing his job too. Cleveringa is not a man of impulsive bravura – he is very aware of the potential consequences but determined to take a clear stand nonetheless.

  On 26 November 1940, Clev
eringa goes to Leiden University in the morning, supposedly to take over the lecture his colleague Meijers would give. In front of his unsuspecting students he delivers a protest speech, which is still regarded as one of the best speeches ever held in the Netherlands. In his address, Cleveringa, as a tribute to his master Meijers, discusses the diversity of his work and thus brings Dutch law to life. He examines the foundations of various areas of law and Meijers’ merits throughout his impressive career, and then makes an appeal to the reason, the conscience and the sense of justice of his young audience:

  Meijers is this Dutchman, this noble and true son of our people, this mensch, this father to his students, this scholar whom the foreigner presently ruling over us with hostility ‘removes from his office’!

  I said I would not speak about my feelings; I shall keep that promise, close as those feelings are to streaming, like hot boiling lava, through all the cracks that sometimes seem as if they might burst open in my head and heart.

  But in the faculty, that according to its objective, is devoted to observing justice, this may not be left unspoken: in accordance with Dutch tradition, the constitution states that every Dutch person may serve his country in any way and can be appointed to any position or dignity, enjoying equal civil and citizens’ rights, regardless of his religion.

  After Cleveringa has said his final word, there is a burst of applause and several students start to sing the national anthem, soon followed by the rest of the hall. The feeling of solidarity swirls through the streets of Leiden, but is brutally crushed the next day with the arrest of Cleveringa, who will spend the rest of the war in the House of Detention in Scheveningen as punishment for his resistance. Leiden University is closed.

  Janny and Lien discuss the action with their friend Tilly, to hearten her and emphasize the courage of her father, Lodewijk Visser, who is President of the Dutch Supreme Court. They admire how determined he is, even after being fired by the Nazis and their collaborators at justice, and abandoned by his fellow judges. When asked about his dismissal, he persists it is not valid; the queen has appointed him and only she is authorized to discharge him from his office – everything else is unlawful. Lodewijk Visser does not leave it at that and keeps actively offering resistance against the Germans. He is a contributor to the underground newspaper Het Parool and will become Chairman of the Jewish Coordination Committee, a national, autonomous organization, founded by two Jewish religious societies.