Kurt gave no show of recognition, but they cannot take the risk. Eberhard discusses the situation with the others at home and they all agree: there is a chance Kurt has defected, in which case he might come back and look for him in the area of Naarderstraat. The only person who can give them a decisive answer is Mik.
As fast as she can, Lien cycles to Laren, where one of their contacts, who is due to go to Amsterdam, lives and explains the situation. He promises to discuss everything with Mik and get back to them as soon as possible.
That night they have an emergency meeting at The High Nest. There is a chance they all have to leave within one or two days. Where can they go? Bochove in Huizen can accommodate one or two people, some other contacts might as well, but no one can take in the entire group.
After a sleepless night, Mik’s answer brings great relief. Kurt Kahle is one of them. First he was stationed at the military command in Amsterdam Centraal Station where he was supposed to provide information to travelling Germans, but in fact spent months helping the resistance distribute illegal anti-Fascist pamphlets. Early 1943, he was conscripted after all and assigned to Sicherungsregiment 26 at Crailo camp in Laren. From there he currently funnels munitions and weapons to the resistance. Mik’s message is very clear: they need not worry.
On 2 October 1943, Lien stares at the newspaper on the table in front of her, the letters on the front page slowly becoming illegible. She blinks a few times, but the letters melt into one another until only large headlines remain. THE SITUATION AT THE EASTERN FRONT is one on the left side. Her eyes carefully move to the right. ANNOUNCEMENT it says, a bit closer to the middle, some judicial order on turning in radios. It is the column next to that one, bottom right, which initially drew her attention. She sniffs loudly and forces herself to read it again: PUNISHMENT FOR MURDERING GENERAL SEYFFARDT, MINISTER POSTHUMA AND OTHERS.
As announced by the Höhere SS-Polizeiführer Nordwest, the Polizeistandgericht Amsterdam has, on 30 September 1943, sentenced the following Dutchmen to death.
This is followed by a list of nineteen names, most of which she recognizes. Medical student Leo Frijda from Amsterdam. Biology student Hans Katan from Amsterdam. Three times the name Boissevain. Anton Koreman, guitarist, also an old friend of theirs. But in between, at number twelve:
Journalist Maarten van Gilse from Amsterdam, born 12 June 1916 in Munich [. . .] The death sentences have, after consideration of clemency, been executed in the early hours of 1 October 1943.
When everyone comes home that night, Lien takes the family aside in the garden and tells them what has happened. They stand in the tall grass in silence. Father stares at his shoes, Mother has put her hand on her pursed lips. Bob reaches for Janny’s hand then drops his arm instead. The sun slowly disappears behind the trees, pulling a shadow across the ochre roof of the house. Fietje shivers. Joseph takes her hand. ‘Come,’ he says and walks towards the house, the rest of the family following in his wake.
Janny will learn from her contacts what happened. Mik and his girlfriend had found shelter in the studio of a sculptor friend at a Prinsengracht attic, close to Westertoren. From here, he coordinated his work for The Free Artist, resistance group CS-6 and the identity card centre. They worked day and night. When the house was surrounded by police, they hastily barricaded the door and stoked the stove to burn as many papers as possible: forged documents, resistance contacts and addresses, his notebook – everything. By now, police were banging on the door and Mik jumped out of the window, onto the roof, just as officers stormed into the room and arrested his girlfriend. Mik was shot and hit, slightly injured, then caught. Prison, hours of questioning, but word has it, he did not reveal anything, not for weeks. And then the death penalty: a bullet straight through his heart, on 1 October, in the dunes near Bloemendaal.
The November issue of The Free Artist includes an extensive obituary and Eberhard reads it out in the evening when all are gathered around the dinner table:
Maarten Van Gilse Dead
Mik was young, young in years, young in his ideals, in his faith in people, in his expectations, in his sincerity and his drive [. . .] Born and raised cosmopolitan, restless by nature, he travelled many countries, earning his keep with his pen, making friends wherever he went, fully enjoying the good life [. . .] We cannot speak of his wartime activities yet; but we can say he fought like a man, his unflinching courage and indestructible optimism were a great support to many, his perseverance accomplished what others, confused and despondent, gave up on. There were many of Mik’s generation who shared his beliefs, many with the same ideals, who until 10 May 1940 took great pride in their open mind and deep understanding. There were very, very few however, who accepted, like he did, the consequences – even the most extreme – when the hour of need came, who persevered when the storm rose, who risked their lives, day after day, who stopped at nothing – no ordeal, no danger – to carry their highest good through fire and death towards a better future.
7
The Kestrel
A Saturday in November. Jetty has celebrated her birthday and everyone has been in high spirits all day. Lien sang a few songs, Eberhard played the piano for everyone and with the scarce resources at their disposal – some dough, preserved apples from the orchard and a pinch of cinnamon – they had produced something that could pass for a cake.
Around half past ten in the evening – when the children and some of the adults are in bed, the fire is burning, some are reading a book and a few other guests are still chatting around the dining table in the living room – they suddenly hear rhythmic stamping. It is soft and far away, as if a drill deep in the ground is thrusting upwards, causing the earth beneath the house to tremble. They urge each other to keep quiet. Faces tighten. They hold their breath and listen.
The noise comes from outside. It swells. They recognize it and rise to their feet, almost in slow motion. At first, there is panic, but then the well-rehearsed emergency plan takes over.
The marching boots are now quickly approaching, hold still on the shell path, make a few crackling steps and then turn off towards the house. Someone presses the emergency button next to the front door and they fly apart, each to their designated hiding place. Fietje, Joseph and Japie will take the children out of bed and hide with them. Lien, Janny, Bob and Eberhard smooth down their clothes, straighten their backs and brace themselves for the confrontation.
‘Bram is still on the toilet!’ Loes Teixeira de Mattos grabs Janny’s arm. She hisses that Loes has to go upstairs anyway, but there is no time. With a curt nod, Janny sends her to a hiding place downstairs, underneath the storage bench beside the fireplace.
The pull handle of the bell at the front door moves back and forth; the tinkling sound cuts through the silence.
‘Aufmachen! Open up!’
Janny and Bob are still rushing to clear suspicious items away. Too many glasses on the table, a carafe of water, too many cigarette butts in the ashtray, an underground magazine lying around. Lien walks through the hall to the front door and stands on her toes, opens the square hatch at the top and tells the men outside: ‘Please be so kind as to walk around the house. I shall open the door to the kitchen for you.’
Another few seconds gained.
With a lot of rattling, clumsily tugging at the bolts, she opens the locks to the kitchen door. When she looks over her shoulder, Janny gives her the thumbs up. Lien swings the door open and a German soldier in uniform is standing right in front of her. His leather belt glistens in the dark, a cloud of breath running ahead of his words.
‘Sorry to disturb you, madam. Could you point us to the path towards the sea, please?’
Behind the man are more soldiers, nodding politely.
Lien forces herself to smile. ‘But of course,’ she answers.
‘We got lost, our group. Any chance you would have a glass of water for us?’
Lien is searching for words, steps aside, opens the door fully.
‘Not a problem. Do come in.’
And so they all end up in the same kitchen; over a dozen German soldiers with their foreman, plus Janny, Lien and Eberhard. They shake the captain’s hand and introduce themselves. Piet Bos. Antje Bos. Janny Brandes. Bob is still busying himself in the living room.
In addition to a glass of water, they offer the boys fresh yoghurt, left over from breakfast.
‘Please don’t go out of your way,’ the captain says initially, but then they all eat with relish.
The men look cold and worn out.
‘We’re on a drill tonight and must find our way to the water,’ their leader says between two bites.
‘Well, you are almost there, then.’ Lien tries to sound as friendly as possible. She points at the kitchen door, towards the back of the garden, the dark forest and the water behind. ‘Just follow the road, through the forest, across the heath, straight on. Keep walking on the narrow path; it leads right to the water.’
‘Can’t you come with us, show us the way in the dark?’ The soldier asking looks at Eberhard, who answers in fluent Dutch.
‘No, I’m sorry, we really can’t. We’re past curfew now.’ He lifts his hands apologetically, but the soldier starts fumbling around in his bag.
Janny and Lien exchange a worried glance.
‘Then I will just give you a permit,’ he says cheerfully, placing a sheet of paper on the kitchen worktop.
‘Mr and Mrs Bos are permitted to leave their house during curfew,’ he says as he writes down the words.
The scratching of pen on paper is absorbed by the ticking of spoons.
‘Signature, stamp, done.’
With a big smile, he hands the paper to Eberhard, who folds it and puts it in his pocket. They get their coats and off they go, down the path, into the forest.
When they return half an hour later, Janny and Bob have freed everyone from their hiding places and calmed them down. The residents had been terrified, not knowing what was going on downstairs while they heard so many deep voices in the house. Lien and Eberhard have to tell all about their walk.
‘So there we were,’ Lien says, still a little shaken, ‘a German deserter and a Dutch Jew leading a German military unit of twenty soldiers, at night, across the dark heath towards the lake, which was once a sea.’
At that moment the toilet door opens and Bram appears – the poor old man has haemorrhoids.
‘What is going on?’ he stammers, and they all burst out laughing.
The permit, with a false date, would often be used that winter.
Their second spring in the house arrives and Janny realizes there is no other place where they have all lived this long together – not since the war began. She feels at home in The High Nest, despite the exceptional circumstances. Of course there is the constant threat, the fear of being found putting their lives on hold, a permanent pressure on their chest. But there is also the freedom of the forest, the heath, the water. There are days, sometimes weeks, when no one comes near the house. When there are no loud noises except for the music rising from various corners of the house at any given moment. And there is Jaap popping his dust-covered head out of the shed to show yet another construct – something one of the residents ordered or a new invention. They have food, water and tobacco; pretty much all they need.
It sometimes pains her to look at the little ones: Liselotte, Kathinka, Robbie. The girls are two and a half and Rob is already a big boy; he is four and a half, but in his own mind almost five. They feel the tension, are forced to grow up in world where there is no place for them. But when she thinks of all the other children she meets – in hiding with her non-Jewish resistance friends or spending a day at The High Nest when passing through – whose parents have been deported or killed, who are separated from their brothers and sisters and housed with perfect strangers, she finds comfort in the thought that at least their children are together, with their parents, their grandparents and their uncle Jaap.
The presence of so many grown-ups has made them rather smart. A little while ago, Lien went shopping with her daughter and they were in the queue at the grocer’s, when Kathinka burst into an old folksong. The customers had looked at the little girl with endearment as she hopped up and down, singing ‘Hop, Marjanneke’, ‘Hey ho, Marianne’, perfectly in tune. But someone had taught Kathinka new words and instead of French soldiers chasing the Dutch prince away; there were now ‘bald-headed Krauts’. Lien was shocked and quickly covered her daughter’s mouth with her hand. The women in the shop looked at each other and burst out laughing. When Lien told Janny the story, she thought it was funny too. Nonetheless, Lien asked Eberhard never to teach their child such lyrics again.
They have become children of the forest. They climb trees, jump over trunks, run around the heath with their arms open wide, build huts in the back of the garden. On warm days they walk to the lake at the other side of the forest, bringing towels, fruit and water. The children are only allowed in calf-deep, but on their way home it feels as if they have conquered a sea. They go to bed all drowsy and sleep like a log under freshly cleaned sheets.
In the morning, when Janny arrives downstairs to find her mother coordinating breakfast shifts, she looks at all the people they are housing – young and old, alone or with their entire family, all those different characters, voices, dialects – and for an instant it feels as if, right in the middle of the forest, she is back in Amsterdam.
She has a bite to eat and a brief chat with her parents, then she puts Robbie’s coat on and leaves the house for work, sometimes taking Liselotte with her too. She takes the tram or walks to the station, then gets on the train to either Utrecht, The Hague or Amsterdam, depending on what instructions she has received. She collects a package, delivers identity cards, distributes underground pamphlets or brings someone waybills, stolen from Bob’s office. She never knows if her contact will be there, or whether they have been betrayed, arrested, deported. When she gets to the meeting point and finds no one or someone she doesn’t expect, Janny kneels down as if to arrange her child’s coat, looks about to assess the situation and makes herself scarce, back to the station, then home.
As she’s walking, it always feels as if someone is following her, but she must remain calm. Not give in to the constant urge to run for it, to drag her child along and scoot off to . . . indeed, to where? There is no escaping it. If she gets caught, everything is finished and until then, she had better act normal and stay focused.
She always makes it home, back at The High Nest. Just like the kestrel at the back of their garden, where dark forest swallows the open grass. Each night after sunset he informs her with his clear cries that he has returned too. Janny keeps an eye on him, kindred spirit. In the daytime he goes hunting, slowly taking in the area, making speed with his short, pointy wings to then hover in the sky until he dives into action. Sometimes she is lucky and catches him suspended in the air – one of the most beautiful things she ever has seen. Calm, waiting for the perfect moment, which he picks intuitively. His tail and wings spread wide and in one straight line with his back and neck, as if time and heaven stand still. His back a beautiful reddish-brown, his head grey like the tail with its deep dark tips. Then, suddenly, he swoops towards the earth as if plunging to his death and reappears in the sky, seconds later, with a field mouse or a chick.
One night Janny is lying in bed, staring at the rafters. Sometimes all the commotion in the house overwhelms her, but all is quiet now. Too quiet. She squeezes her eyes shut, tries to filter out Bob’s soft snoring beside her, and listens. She suddenly realizes she has not seen or heard the kestrel for some time. Was it yesterday? The day before? She has been so busy, she has no idea. Tonight, she definitely has not heard his cries. Janny begins to feel nervous, as if this is not a good omen.
She falls asleep, with one ear alert to the sounds outside, and at sunrise creeps outside on bare feet. The rest of the house is still fast asleep. A sweet smell is lingering between the walls. In the half-light of morning she crosses the garden. T
he dew on the grass feels cold at her feet. She passes the gazebo, where she sees the children’s doll’s house and its miniature set of china, and through the orchard she walks to the back, where the dark edge of the forest is looming. She vanishes between the trees. Thick stems of ivy curl around old barks. Here and there are heaps of dry autumn leaves, yellow and crisp after hot summer months. Branches scratch her skin, a thorn tugs at the cotton of her nightgown, but she carefully walks on, her head leant back and her eyes focused on the thick treetops above.
After a couple of feet, she holds still with bated breath. There he is, perching on the rim of a large nest, once made by crows. His claws clasping the branches, his beady eyes focusing straight on Janny, ready, it seems, to attack. Behind him in the nest, a female is brooding; her broad back is speckled beautifully.
Cautiously, Janny backs out of the forest, turns around, walks briskly to the house across the lawn and crawls back into bed with Bob, a smile playing around her lips. Everyone is where they ought to be.
8
Autumn Song
Each time she returns to Amsterdam, Janny finds the city emptier. When she takes the tram from Centraal Station and looks out of the window, it seems as if nothing has changed. The stately canal houses, the bridges and the awnings with names of old familiar shops – it is all still there. But the people are gone.
It is like passing through a ghost town; dark memories everywhere. The family with three daughters she was at school with – gone. The cheesemonger and the butcher – gone. The wealthy businessman and his family in the house with those heavy burgundy curtains – gone. All the market people she knew through her father – gone. Sometimes their places, curtains and all, have been taken by strangers. Her stomach churns as she watches a mother feeding her child on a chair that is not theirs. A former classmate used to live there, a girl Lien danced with used to live there. And ‘used to’ is only one year ago.
The Sisters of Auschwitz Page 16