The Sisters of Auschwitz

by Roxane van Iperen

  Together they approach the checkpoint, where between the Dutch officers two SS men are posted, scanning the platform. The soldier walks straight towards them and Lien too holds her chin up. The SS men salute the soldier. He salutes back and says: ‘This lady is coming with me.’

  And they are past the gate. Lien is too frightened to breathe or swallow and presses her bag tightly against her chest, the forged documents almost burning through the leather. Trams no longer run and, without a word, she walks out of the faint circle of light on the station square, into the city immersed in darkness. The boy can hardly keep up with her – she hears him cursing as he trips over a paving stone. Lien is breathing so fast now, she fears the soldier will hear her panting. The street is dead quiet. The music, the lights, the drunkards, the working girls, the nightlife public and the dots of tourists blocking the roads – all gone. Amsterdam is deserted.

  Lien walks faster and faster, ignoring the questions of the man following in her wake. Only when they reach Westermarkt does she check her step and look at him apologetically.

  ‘I live near here. My mother must be worried sick about me being so late. Thank you.’

  And before the astonished boy can say a word, she dashes off, onto Rozengracht, where she dives into a doorway to see if he has followed her. When after a few minutes she still doesn’t hear any footsteps, she braces herself and runs onto Prinsengracht, straight to their hiding place.

  As soon as the door sways open, she is welcomed by a screaming Kathinka and a desperate Eberhard, who was already assuming he would never see his love again.

  ‘Have you completely lost your mind?’ Mik is pacing up and down in front of the long windows, pressing his index finger against his forehead like an arrow. The sun rises above the houses on the other side of the canal, reflecting inside off the water; a shadow silhouette of Mik is swimming laps on the wooden floor.

  Lien hears the tram pull up in Leidsestraat around the corner. She does not dare look Mik in the eye. Never has she seen him this furious. She came over to deliver the documents and told him about the disaster she escaped last night. After she had fed Kathinka in the middle of the night, the girl slept like a log. But she and Eberhard lay wide awake in silence until the singing of blackbirds announced the break of dawn.

  ‘Rebekka Brilleslijper, with a fat J next to it. What madness!’

  Mik now stands in front of her, his hands on his sides; Lien feels his eyes burning in her crown. She never told him she had registered as Jewish, so when this morning he asked her, because of the latest incident, what identity card she had, he nearly exploded. Just as Janny had done before.

  ‘Listen. You are walking home in one straight line now, and you stay there until we’ve taken care of this. All right?’

  As Lien hears the heavy door slam behind her and she walks down the stone steps to the canal, she suddenly realizes her life, the lives of her friends and family, at this moment in time, all depend on a string of remarkable friendships.

  A few days later she receives her new identity card. Lien stares at it for a while, then she walks to the mirror and pins up her dark, heavy locks in a bun, like a woman from the East Indies. From now on, Kathinka’s mother is called Antje Sillevis, born in Surabaya in Indonesia (then part of the Dutch East Indies). The time to leave the city has come.

  10

  The First Train

  Jan Hemelrijk succeeds in finding a place in Bergen for Lien, Eberhard and Kathinka too – close to Janny and the rest of the family. As they prepare to leave Amsterdam, other Jewish families keep arriving. Trains packed with people from all over the country who were chased out of their homes and villages and will be crammed into designated areas. Amsterdam slowly transforms into a ghetto: a city where Jews are gathered, isolated from the rest of the Dutch population, fully prepared for the next logistical step in the ‘Final Solution’. The Municipal Housing Service raises rental prices of the houses Jewish families must move into. On top of that, they ask for a deposit of ten guilders per home – which, in most cases, was never returned.

  And then the Zentralstelle für Jüdische Auswanderung, the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Amsterdam, where the index cards of those to be deported are kept, is given a new task. The registrars will have to put in a huge amount of overtime.

  Reich Commissioner Seyss-Inquart was initially summoned to supply 15,000 Jews in the year 1942. This target for the Netherlands was greeted with indifference; it could be met by deporting the foreign Jews alone. Seyss-Inquart was not expecting any fuss among the Dutch about this. But the Nazi heads have learned France will never reach their assigned 100,000 deportations that year and in great haste they decide the deficit must be compensated elsewhere. With one stroke of the pen, the annual quota for the Netherlands is raised from 15,000 to 40,000 people. On 15 July 1942, the first 4,000 Jews shall have to report at Amsterdam Centraal Station.

  The mayor of Amsterdam immediately orders the civil servants at the register to draw up a list with names of Dutch Jews. The initial thorough registration of 160,000 Dutch Jews and the notorious dotted map facilitate this process.

  On an administrative and organizational level, supplying 40,000 Jews will not cause anyone to lose any sleep, but both the occupying forces and the DNP expect an uproar among the people now that Jewish neighbours, former colleagues and friends suddenly have to pack their belongings in such large numbers. The Zentralstelle thinks it wise to call in the Jewish Council as an ally, so all will go smoothly and without too much panic.

  On Friday evening of 26 June, during Sabbath, the head of the Zentralstelle, Ferdinand aus der Fünten, summons one of the chairmen of the Jewish Council, David Cohen. He tells him that at very short notice the first Jews will be deployed for forced labour under police surveillance in Germany. Cohen writes in his memoirs that this announcement frightens him terribly, that he protests and threatens to resign, but is assured by Aus der Fünten that most Jews will be allowed to stay in the Netherlands and that working conditions in Germany will be decent.

  Either the Jewish Council assists in drawing up the lists – and decides who shall be exempted from deportation, such as themselves, their families and friends – or Aus der Fünten will do it himself, without regard to person. The Jewish Council opts for cooperation. They will have to supply 800 names per day.

  From 5 July 1942 onwards, the first calls arrive in the post:

  CALL!

  For potential participation in the expansion of police supervised employment in Germany, you are called to proceed to transit camp Westerbork, Hooghalen station, for personal and medical examination. To that end you must be present on [date] at [time] at assembly point [station].

  Panic breaks out. People want to go into hiding or they fit out their baggage with secret compartments, sewed-in pockets with money and photos. They try to find out who else in their circle of friends or family has been called up, and why, or why not.

  Cohen, Asscher and Aus der Fünten gather once more, because the chairs of the Council have heard that in time all Jews will be deported. Aus der Fünten reassures them; it is indeed the ultimate goal, but he promises that the Jewish Council and its staff need not worry about deportation. Cohen and Asscher can tell their people that correspondence with the labour camps will be possible.

  The Council immediately hires more staff, who are all exempt from deportation by the Germans.

  Mik informs Janny, and she in turn tells her husband, father, mother and brother what she knows. All registered Jews in Amsterdam have been summoned to report and they will be sent to labour camps, she says. Her family falls silent. What does this mean? Is it cause for concern? So many unimaginable things have already happened. Whatever frame of reference they had is gone.

  Joseph tries a matter-of-fact approach; in itself it is no surprise the Germans need manpower, certainly with the war spreading over a larger area and even America getting involved. And it seems the call is only for Jewish men between the ages of sixteen and for
ty. Fietje agrees; of course, extra hands are required to keep the war apparatus going, both in the factories and on the fields. It is probably nothing to worry about. But Janny looks intently at her little brother Jaap, her eyes narrowed. He is twenty-two years old and would have been a perfect target had he still been in Amsterdam. She crushes their wishful thinking with one remark: ‘Everyone who is called up now ends up in a concentration camp and never returns again.’

  The call has indeed set all alarm bells ringing within the Jewish community in Amsterdam. People want to go into hiding en masse. The Germans notice their next step in the secret ‘Final Solution’ is likely to go wrong and they plan a raid, exactly one day before all designated Jews have to report. On Tuesday 14 July, within a few hours, between 700 and 800 Jewish people are arrested at random. They have to march to Adama van Scheltemaplein and Euterpestraat, Amsterstam-Zuid, in a long procession.

  There, the Sicherheitsdienst (the Intelligence Agency of the SS) and the Zentralstalle have taken up quarters in a former secondary school for girls. The school has become a place where resistance people are tortured and the deportation system is finalized. In the gym, and other parts of the building, Jews await their deportation. The notorious Hausraterfassungsstelle (Office for the Registration of Household Effects), partly led by Willem Henneicke, is based on Adama van Scheltemaplein too. This group of twenty, sometimes thirty civil servants – the Henneicke Column – is charged with creating accurate inventory lists of expropriated Jewish homes. They also trace undeclared Jewish goods and have everything removed to depots of the Liro looting bank. Lippmann, Rosenthal & Co was a Jewish bank, expropriated by the occupying forces. Already at the start of the war it was deployed as a ‘reliable organization’ for the Jews to hand in their belongings. Part of the home contents subsequently goes to German families, but the profit will mostly be used to fund the ‘Final Solution’.

  With the arrest of well over 700 Jews – including children, women and babies, and elderly people – the occupying forces have the hostages they need to get the Jewish Council back to work. Asscher and Cohen are given a choice: either they call upon their community to report obediently for the labour camps, or this group will be sent to a concentration camp, probably Mauthausen. The Council immediately issues an extra edition of Het Joodsche Weekblad (The Jewish Weekly):

  EXTRA EDITION

  Amsterdam, 14 juli 1942

  De Sicherheitspolizei informs us of the following:

  About 700 Jews have been arrested in Amsterdam today.

  If the 4000 designated Jews do not leave for the labour camps in Germany this week, the 700 who have been arrested will be transported to a concentration camp in Germany.

  The chairmen of the Jewish Council for Amsterdam,

  A. Asscher

  Prof. Dr. D. Cohen

  The next day 962 Jews report to Amsterdam Centraal Station and the first train from Westerbork to Auschwitz-Birkenau leaves. The train carries 1,137 people, including a group of orphans. Almost all passengers are killed upon arrival.

  Up until 13 September 1944, another ninety-six trains will depart from Westerbork, filled with 107,000 people – 5,000 of them return alive. All across Western Europe trains run to remove ‘unwanted elements’ from society – with varying degrees of success. In Belgium, 30 per cent of the community will be deported to concentration camps, in France 25 per cent. The Netherlands will transport 76 per cent of its Jewish community within twenty-six months.

  11

  Bergen aan Zee

  On 16 July 1942, one day after the first train has left Westerbork for Auschwitz, Eberhard and Lien walk down the Prinsengracht towards Centraal Station, Kathinka in the pram, a small suitcase in their hands. They get on the train and watch as the city slowly disappears into the distance. The gates of Amsterdam are closing and their escape to Bergen is just in time.

  There, Jan Hemelrijk is waiting for them on the platform. With his face serious, his blond hair neatly combed back, he looks older than twenty-five. He has arranged for Lien and her young family to stay in the empty home of some acquaintances until 1 September. Then they can move into the summer cottage, where Eberhard spent part of last winter. Between Breelaan, where the cottage is, and Buerweg, where Janny and the rest of the family live, is just over a mile of wooded area. All on the western outskirts of Bergen, towards the coast. Concealed by nature, they can walk to the others anytime.

  And so, in the summer of 1942, the Brilleslijper family is reunited, partners and children alike. But the circumstances are grim and the mood is far from cheerful. Their little houses are fine and the surroundings of Bergen beautiful, but within two years the places they called home, the people who live there, have changed beyond recognition. It is all the sisters and the rest of the family can talk about.

  After the first call to report at Westerbork, after the raid – which Lien, Eberhard and Kathinka narrowly escaped – there is a sudden rush for Sperres. The occupying forces have provided the Jewish Council with 17,500 of these provisional exemptions. Among the Jewish community in Amsterdam, a feverish struggle to secure one breaks out. There is fighting and desperate pleas at the doors of the Jewish Council at 58 Nieuwe Keizersgracht. People try, at the very last minute, to marry someone who has been exempted and others beg the Jewish Council for a job. In addition to a group of prominent Jews, deemed important to the community by the Council, their own employees and family are the first to receive a Sperre. No less than 17,000 people are ‘employed’. It will eventually give them a year of respite.

  Meanwhile, Janny’s resistance work continues – even from Bergen. She works for the PBC, the Identity Card Centre, cofounded by their friend Mik van Gilse, and spends a lot of time travelling to forge and distribute the documents. She must often try to find identity cards with specific birth dates for Jews who are about the same age. Janny mostly works in tandem with her friend Trees Lemaire; she will deliver her stolen cards to Trees, who then passes them on to the next person in the underground network.

  The night before Kathinka’s first birthday, Lien and Eberhard sit in silence together and read The Jewish Weekly. Eberhard has gone up and down to Amsterdam for some treats to celebrate; in the local shops in Bergen sweet things cannot be found any more. He dropped by and saw Mrs Cornelius at Prinsengracht, who told him about a new raid among the Jewish community, just the day before. She gave him the latest extra edition of The Jewish Weekly, dated 6 August 1942. With the magazine pressed between his shirt and his trousers, he took the train back to Bergen.

  THE JEWISH WEEKLY

  Extra edition

  Any and all Jews not immediately responding to the call addressed to them for the expansion of employment in Germany, will be arrested and taken to Mauthausen concentration camp. This or another punishment will not be imposed on those Jews still reporting before Saturday, 9 August 1942 at five o’clock, or those who declare to be willing to participate in the expansion of employment.

  Any and all Jews not wearing a Star of David, will be taken to Mauthausen concentration camp.

  Any and all Jews changing the city or house they live in without permission of the authorities – even if this is only temporary – will be taken to Mauthausen concentration camp.

  It is quiet for a moment as both of them digest the message. Actually this is positive, Lien concludes pensively, pointing at the first point of order; the Germans implicitly admit that many Jews have not reported and that people go into hiding as soon as they receive the call. Eberhard raises his eyebrows, pointing at point two. That allows for an encouraging interpretation too; the fact that they threaten with deportation means the Star of David is sabotaged. But how long will this stubbornness last? By now everyone in the Netherlands knows that you don’t spend more than six months in Mauthausen. Many new, and much larger, concentration camps have been built in Poland, from which no one returns.

  They agree these are false rays of hope; the Jewish Council is simply calling for absolute obedience to the Fasci
sts.

  Eberhard’s finger rests on point three; this is about Lien, about the entire Brilleslijper family. They have evaded the authorities and their whereabouts are unknown. Eberhard folds the magazine and Lien walks towards the kitchen. There is nothing left to discuss; there is no way back.

  In September 1942, two months after the first train left Westerbork for Auschwitz and the Jewish Council issued their call, Jan Hemelrijk asks Eberhard to accompany a child to its hiding place. Eberhard has done this before; among themselves and with a touch of irony they call him ‘the merchant of children’.

  The last gullibility prevailing among the Jewish has been wiped out by recent developments and people go to great lengths to save their children from the hands of the Nazis. With or without parents, brothers and sisters, with or without explanation, with acquaintances or perfect strangers: throughout the Netherlands children are hidden like Easter eggs. Sometimes they are old enough to understand what is happening and sometimes there is a chance to say goodbye, but there are also families where father and mother are suddenly put on the train and the children are left behind at home in despair.

  A nursemaid in Groningen remembers the instructions her boss, a Jewish woman with seven children, gave her: ‘When they come and get us, I will put the baby in the back of the closet, underneath a pile of blankets. Keep an eye on our house and look for the child if you think we have been taken away!’

  And so it happens; parents and six children are deported, and the nurse finds the baby in the back of the closet, hidden under layers of wool but alive. She wraps him up warm, straps him onto the back of her bicycle and, against the wind, peddles the long road towards the north, to the sea. There, she gives the child to fishermen on a cutter, who take it across to Norway, where an unknown Norwegian couple lovingly take it in and raise it. The only things they know about the baby are the first and second name the nursemaid gave them.