The Sisters of Auschwitz

by Roxane van Iperen

  Father, Mother and Jaap stay with Janny. None of the three will ever return to their beloved Amsterdam again.

  While the family regroups as best as they can, the Nazis prepare for the next phase of their population policy. Most registered Jews in the Netherlands are concentrated in and around Amsterdam, and Reich Commissioner Arthur Seyss-Inquart almost has the system for the intended deportations in place. Groups of unemployed and foreign Jews are already transported to Westerbork, the camp built in 1938 for accommodating refugees from neighbouring countries. But the Germans now have a different purpose in mind: Westerbork will start serving as a transit point to concentration camps.

  At the Polish town of Os´wie˛cim, some 700 miles east of Westerbork, a camp was built on a former army barracks in 1940 to handle the enormous influx of Polish prisoners. Os´wie˛cim, in German, is quickly corrupted to Auschwitz. On the grounds of this camp, between 15,000 and 20,000 people can be held captive in stone barracks. It isn’t enough. Hitler orders the construction of a new, much larger camp, and in March 1941, a few miles away from basecamp Auschwitz I, a plain of 432 hectares is reclaimed for building Auschwitz II, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau. As the war proceeds, another forty sub-camps will be built around Auschwitz, where prisoners are set to hard labour, ranging from factory work to toiling in the fields.

  A next step towards the ‘Final Solution’ is the secret Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942. In Villa Marlier, a country estate at the Wannsee, south-west of Berlin, fifteen top Nazi people gather. They are invited by SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich for a meeting that will take little more than two hours. The discussions are summarized in fifteen pages of notes, part of which is an inventory detailing the size of the Jewish community per country. The number below the line is 11 million; the Netherlands is listed with 160,800 people.

  During the meeting, various solutions pass – from confinement to mass sterilization. How the big clear-out of eleven million Jews will eventually be organized is recorded literally:

  As part of the practical implementation of the Final Solution, Europe shall be combed out from the west to the east. The national territory, including Bohemia and Moravia, goes first, if only for reasons of the housing problem and other sociopolitical necessities. The evacuated Jews will first be gathered, train by train, in so-called transit ghettos, and transported further east from there.

  The Germans commission Dutch National Rail, the NS, to construct a railway to the grounds of Westerbork, so trains can both stop in the camp and depart from it, making logistics a lot easier.

  The mayor of Beilen, the neighbouring village, briefly protests against the construction of these tracks through his farmland, because of ‘potential destruction of the natural beauty’, but the Germans dismiss his objection. It is, after all, a temporary construction, they write in a response, ‘das wieder entfernt wird sobald das Lager seinen Zweck erfüllt hat’ – which shall be demolished as soon as the camp has fulfilled its purpose.

  With about a hundred prisoners, the NS build a branch from Hooghalen station to Westerbork concentration camp. This extension will not make the journey much faster: at Hooghalen station the cattle wagons with thousands of people often have to wait a long time before getting on the main track – goods carriages with supplies for the Germans are given priority. Local residents and civil servants speak of howling and wailing coming from between the planks of the wagons, from babies and the sick and the disabled to women giving birth. The NS charge the occupying forces for the cost of constructing the railway, setting up a timetable to the German border and ultimately for each transportation of Jews to the concentration camps in the east. The Germans pay with money stolen from the Jews.

  In the meantime, experiments are conducted in the base camp, Auschwitz I, with poison gas Zyklon B. In one of the crematoriums 1,000 prisoners, mainly prisoners of war from the Soviet Union, and prisoners who are seriously ill, are used as guinea pigs. The poison, in the form of small marbles, is scattered straight into the space, which is then hermetically sealed. As soon as the marbles are exposed to open air, they dissolve and a deadly gas is released: hydrogen cyanide, or hydrocyanic acid. It takes hours before all the prisoners are dead.

  In 1941 and 1942, more experiments follow – mostly on people from Polish ghettos and more prisoners of war from the Soviet Union – until the right amount of poisonous gas is determined. When trains from all over Europe start running in 1942, the step towards a large-scale, mechanized approach is only a small one. For this purpose, the second, much-larger, site next to Auschwitz is approved; at Birkenau village a small city for about 100,000 people will be built. Ultimately, this is where the mass destruction of Jews, the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish problem’, will take place.

  The intention shows in every aspect of the design of the camp. There are no facilities with running water and no decent, washable floors – making the risk of disease enormous. Instead of one person per cage, as is custom in German prison camps, four becomes the norm, which brings the total capacity of the camp to 129,456 people. Four large gas chambers and crematoria are built next to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the death toll of Treblinka and Belzec, two other extermination camps, will soon be exceeded.

  9

  On the Run

  The majestic lime trees on Lange Voorhout are blossoming and throughout the city roadsides are dotted with crocuses. Janny, for the first time in her life, doesn’t care, doesn’t feel relief at the arrival of spring.

  The first two years of the occupation were the setting up of a trap. Little by little, the Germans have isolated all Jews from the rest of the population. Step by step, discrimination, suppression, and the theft of property and dignity have increased. Some walked into the trap believing all would end well. Some were lured in by their leaders, such as the Jewish Council. Most were kicked into the nets by squads or the police.

  One or two had a lucky escape; a stroke of luck, stubbornness – often a combination of the two. People who weren’t registered as Jews, who got their forged papers on time, who went into hiding on time. People who gathered a network of other stubborn lucky ones, who became self-sufficient and didn’t need help from anyone who might prove to be a collaborator or a coward. And now they have to save as many people from the trap as they can.

  In Amsterdam the oppression of their former Jewish neigbours has, Janny knows, become increasingly public and aggressive. The Jewish Council, led by Asscher and Cohen, has supplied lists of unemployed Jews to the Germans. These men were subsequently arrested and sent to labour camps. The Council now has a department in The Hague, too, on the corner of Noordeinde, where the royal palace is located, and they have sub-offices in the rest of the city. To further complicate things, Frits Reuter moves back in with Janny. His host was caught and Frits urgently needed temporary shelter.

  The imprisonment of her sick father is lingering between them, heavy and undiscussed, in a house that is already tiny. Although they got their father back, Janny is more aware than ever that she is playing with fire. The Germans are after her brother, her husband and her brother-in-law, and her own underground activities are only increasing; the need to ask for help rises by the day, by the hour. In many Jewish families blind faith, credulity or hope for protection by Dutch dignitaries has turned into panic. Those who first, whether or not by order of the Jewish Council, had a J registered in their identity card understand now that this is likely to mean their ‘evacuation’.

  And so it happens that desperate people call at Janny’s house, shouting across the street: ‘Is this where Mrs Brandes lives? Please could you remove the J from our ID?’ Father Brilleslijper is getting nervous and when, in broad daylight, another distraught woman bangs on the door, calling her name, he forbids Janny to go downstairs. Fietje tries to quiet her granddaughter, Liselotte – the girl seems unable to stop crying since she was born in September – and Jaap distracts Robbie. While the thumping at the front door gets on everyone’s nerves and Janny would like to
run down and slap the woman in the face, Father takes his daughter aside in the hallway.

  ‘You are driving us all to our death, Janny. This has got to stop!’

  His whispers sound like a storm in a wind turbine, louder almost than the shouting of the woman downstairs. Janny stares at her father and suddenly remembers the night her parents saw The Merchant of Venice in Carré Theatre. They came back in high spirits and for months her father whistled, hummed and sang all the songs – or what passed for them. It all seems such a long time ago.

  While the woman on the street below is still calling her name, Janny realizes they have to leave this place. Now.

  Again, her brother-in-law, Jan Hemelrijk, offers the solution; he and his father find an empty home in Bergen for the Brilleslijper family. The house is called Het Aafje and lies hidden in the forest, away from the village centre, towards the coast. Even better news is that Bob will join the family again. Officially, the DNP have him registered as a communist in the province of South Holland, but two years of underground work has taught them that the administrative systems are not interconnected; there is no structural exchange of information between regions. They are willing to take the risk; the authorities in North Holland probably don’t know his name. Besides, Bob is not Jewish and has no J in his identity card; if he were arrested in Bergen, there is little chance of local Nazis thinking him suspicious and taking him away.

  Janny arranges an official permit for moving to Bergen with her children; she will have to hide the rest of the family in the removal van. The resistance has found Frits Reuter a new hiding place.

  On the day of the move, Janny is on the street, ready to leave. Her belongings are in the removal van, Liselotte and Robbie are sat in the front, and she is just closing the back, where her parents and Jaap are hiding, when she sees her neighbour opposite approach. Janny dislikes her; she always sees the woman peeping over the half curtains of her living room and suspects she has German sympathies.

  ‘Are you moving?’ the woman asks without greeting her.

  ‘As you can see,’ says Janny.

  ‘I already said to myself: all those Jews in there. That can never last.’

  Janny’s cheeks begin to glow. She arranges her scarf and gets behind the wheel, implying that the conversation is over.

  ‘Are you moving to a larger house?’

  Janny hears the woman but slams the door shut, starts the engine and steps on the accelerator a few times. The woman jumps aside, onto the pavement, and Janny drives up onto the road. Beside her, Robbie cries out with joy; she absent-mindedly strokes his head as she sees the silhouette of the woman become smaller in the mirror. Her heartbeat drowns out the rattle of the moving van and does not calm until they have reached the house in Bergen. For the first time in months she can embrace Bob and introduce him to his daughter, Liselotte.

  For Lien, too, The Hague is becoming too dangerous; she is widely known from her dance and singing performances, and many of her students live in and around the city. With her striking appearance it’s hard not to notice her and, on top of that, she has a J in her identity card; it still infuriates Janny that her sister let that happen.

  Germans keep calling at the house at the strangest hours asking where Eberhard has gone. Thankfully, everyone consistently refers to the address he left on the notice board. And yet, Lien is not at ease. She wants to leave The Hague with Kathinka before anyone arrests her to find out where Eberhard went, and before the registered Jews in The Hague are up for ‘evacuation’.

  Friend Jolle Huckriede, the clarinettist next door whom Eberhard had given his box of precious objects to look after, comes up with an idea. His brother Jan is going steady with Violette Cornelius, a young photographer, also active in the resistance. Violette’s mother lives along the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam and is willing to offer Lien shelter. She even agrees not only to have mother and daughter move in, but to let Eberhard join them too.

  Eberhard has spent the winter at Jan and Aleid’s, who lovingly took care of him. But all those months he had to hide in his room, lonely and frustrated about his powerlessness. Apart from Lien’s letters, sent to him by Rhijn, he had no connection to the outside world. Oddly, the one thing that cheered him up was the terrible frost. That winter was exceptionally cold in the Netherlands, with temperatures far below zero degrees. It was impossible to keep warm and for months the entire country complained about the cold. But Eberhard was pleased. Via the radio, he and Jan followed reports on German troops in the Soviet Union, crashing against the wall of wintry cold Hitler had not equipped them for. Every day Eberhard spent in his room with Jan and Aleid was a day he was not at the Wehrmacht.

  It was obvious to Jan Hemelrijk that his friend felt awkward as their underground guest – his presence put the family at risk – and he managed to find Eberhard a little house all to himself, still in Bergen. So these days, Eberhard spends the day in the vacant studio of a sculptor friend and sleeps in a summer cottage on Breelaan, within walking distance from the studio. This way they spread the risks for the fugitive Eberhard and if there is any danger, he can get away via the forest.

  Eberhard can stay in the summer cottage until 1 May and will soon have to look for something else. That in itself makes hiding in Amsterdam with Lien a great idea. Their friend, journalist Mik van Gilse, takes care of everything for them: he contacts Mrs Cornelius, keeps Eberhard posted on when he can join his family in Amsterdam, and lets Lien know when she and Kathinka can move out of The Hague.

  And so, in May, the time has finally come; Lien, Eberhard and Kathinka are reunited in the canal house of Mrs Cornelius. They immediately feel at home; the household is very similar to their place in The Hague, full of creative and politically involved people. There are always visitors and Eberhard relishes the conversations he so missed in the forests of Bergen. Although the bustling Amsterdam life from before the war is smothered in terror, underneath the surface a parallel city has come into being. A city with routes and passages the Germans are unaware of, secret cafés in dark cellars, people playing cards in the lofts of canal houses, concerts starting after curfew when night lights are switched off.

  At first, Lien and Eberhard love being part of this community again, but they soon realize this life is no longer for them. Ordinary Amsterdammers, no matter how much the occupation has influenced their lives, still have some freedom of movement. But Lien has a J in her identity card and still does underground work for Mik – she regularly travels up and down to The Hague – and Eberhard is a wanted German deserter. Although he has grown a moustache and goes by the name of Jean-Jacques Bos, that is no guarantee. The house is too busy; there are people visiting who are strangers to them and they cannot tell whether they are trustworthy or traitors. The streets are not safe, either: they are swarming with police officers, squads, Nazis. Eberhard barely dares to leave the house and Lien has had a narrow escape from the Germans twice.

  The first time was in The Hague, where another resistance worker would give her new distribution cards. Lien wanted to drop by her former home on Bankastraat, collect some final belongings, but was clever enough to call the house from a friend’s place first, just to make sure the coast was clear.

  ‘Hello, madam,’ her friend Ankie answered formally as soon as she heard Lien’s voice, ‘you are mistaken, I’m afraid. We are supposed to meet tomorrow, not today. Bye now!’ And she hung up.

  Lien immediately understood what was going on. There had been a German, or a Dutch Nazi, right there next to Ankie, looking for Eberhard, and perhaps also for her. She stood with the receiver in her trembling hand and felt the physical proximity of the enemy.

  Lien sat on a chair at her friend’s place, trying to pull herself together. Hours passed without her daring to leave. She remembered what she told Ankie and her friend Jolle before leaving with Kathinka: ‘Why don’t you use the Bechstein grand piano while we’re away? If we don’t survive the war, you can keep it.’ She had said it half-jokingly, but the scenario su
ddenly no longer seemed improbable.

  Her friend called the house again later, and this time too, Ankie answered. She confirmed there had indeed been a house search. Everyone had insisted Eberhard had taken the train to Germany and they did not know where Lien lived now – but the whole situation had upset them terribly.

  Unsteady on her legs, Lien travels back to Amsterdam that evening, where the incident keeps her from sleeping, for several nights on end.

  A second time she narrowly escapes the Germans is when she walks into a police blockade at Amsterdam Centraal Station after midnight. This time, too, she is returning from The Hague with forged papers for Mik, but it is late – too late. She should have been back on Prinsengracht on time, not only because curfew begins at midnight, but also because Kathinka should already have been fed.

  She is waiting for hours at the station in The Hague, but the train is not coming; the only train finally passing says ‘for relations of the German Wehrmacht only’. Lien imagines Eberhard pacing up and down with the crying baby and other people in the house entering their room to see what is going on – so she climbs in.

  The train seems to drive with syrup in the wheels. The platform clock at a station it passes shows it is past midnight; if she gets through at Centraal Station, she will likely be stopped on the street later. Lien closes her eyes and searches her acting experience for a way to get herself out of this situation.

  When she opens her eyes again, she stares straight into the face of a soldier. He is a few seats away – large, heavy and does not come across as very bright. The boy keeps staring at her and while his comrades are busy talking among each other, she winks at him. When she gets off at Amsterdam Centraal Station, he follows her.

  ‘Can I walk up with you?’ the soldier asks.

  Lien smiles shyly and nods.

  ‘All right, but it is past the curfew; I don’t know how to get home.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the soldier responds as he grabs her elbow.