The Sisters of Auschwitz

by Roxane van Iperen

  They first dropped off an older lady in Harderwijk, then a young woman in Hilversum. It was early afternoon when they arrived in Harderwijk. The street was silent, and the four women sat in the car, all tensed up, nervous about the welcome. But when the family saw the older lady, the street exploded with joy. Next stop, Hilversum. At the address of the second woman everything was dark; her house was empty. Husband, children – gone. The look on her face was unbearable, but the sisters wanted to move on. To Amsterdam. Janny with a white bear and a pillowcase full of raisins and marzipan on her lap, her jaw locked. Lien beside her in her Sunday best. She gives the dentist directions from Johannes Verhulststraat.

  ‘First you go back to the Berlage bridge, then we can drive down the Amstel from there.’

  The man accelerates. The house of Mieke and Haakon glides out of sight.

  Follow the same way back, cross the water, Apollolaan, straight ahead, Noorder Amstellaan. Past a bench. She sat there with Bob once.

  Bob. She had tried hard not to think of him and the children, afraid she would tumble into a bottomless well. But in recent weeks, images of the children and Bob kept coming up. Liselotte’s face under a woollen hat with under-chin ties. Robbie laughing out loud, skipping through leaves in the forest. Bob coming home from work, bicycle in his hand, or sitting opposite her in his chair, reading to her in the evening. Would he even recognize her? Janny’s hand shoots up to flatten unruly wisps of hair. ‘No! Don’t cut it!’ she had screamed when the Swiss nurse found another louse. As weak as she was, at least she had managed to prevent that. No shaven head any more.

  How sick she had been. Unconscious for over fourteen days; she had opened every door between life and death. But each time there was something worth coming back for. Clean sheets on her broken skin. Bones warmed by a sunbeam shining through the window. The sweet voice of a nurse. Doctor Jim, the ginger Irishman, exuding a sense of ‘all shall be well’. He asked her the same question each day, but she was too weak to answer.

  ‘Where are you from?’ Sparkling eyes, a cheeky smile.

  ‘Amsterdam,’ she finally managed.

  No sound, he had to read her lips.

  ‘I’ll go find your sister,’ he had said. ‘If you promise to eat, I’ll go find your sister.’

  But Janny could not eat, she had so many sores in her mouth that she could not swallow. A cord was tightened around her chest, she could not breathe, she had to eat, or he would not look for Lientje. In her coma, snatches of conversations between the nurses about decomposing corpses, countless sick people, still hundreds of deaths per day, mass graves. She had to find Lientje in time, but she could not move, her mind was disconnected from her body.

  Daniël Willinkplein, where the three Amstel avenues connect in a Y, its striking centrepiece: the twelve-storey house.

  Janny looks up as they pass the building. The concrete skyscraper with its iron balconies. She and Lien used to giggle, wondering who on earth would want to live up there. That Lientje must be dead. She still hears the nurse whisper it to Doctor Jim; it was as if someone injected ice water straight into her veins. Her body was cold and numb, feet falling limply to the side, the palms of her hands pointing helplessly towards the ceiling, but inside she was overflowing. Tears streaming across her cheeks, they kept on coming, and she could do nothing to wipe them away.

  The skyscraper at their back, they cross Rijnstraat. Very few people on the street. Tram 8 stopped running in 1942. Onwards via Amstellaan, the bridge in the distance.

  Lien gestures to the nice man: straight ahead. Janny dreamed of her at night, walked barefoot across the camp site in her nightgown, searched piles of bodies, rummaged through limbs and always woke up to the face of the nurse above her bed, an apologetic look in her eyes; no news. She saw Lientje’s silhouette everywhere; she saw her through the window at the end of the ward, she saw her walking between the beds, she heard her voice, so familiar it seemed to come out of her own body, and she raised her hand. A primal scream, an embrace as if they could dissolve into each other and never be separated again.

  ‘I am taking you out of here, I won’t leave you behind again ever, I’m taking you with me!’ Lien whispered in her ear.

  She arranged for two strong women to help carry Janny from the sickbay, quickly, before anyone would see them, to the barracks where Lien was staying. But she was so weak, she could not eat. Lien pre-chewed the food, gently pressed it into her mouth. It did not work. Janny was lying on the lower bed and all she could do was cry. So sick. Lien fed her like a little bird, go on, you have to eat, the plane to the Netherlands is leaving soon, come on, but Janny almost choked and was rushed back to the sickbay.

  The plane left without them.

  Berlage bridge. The threshold to Amsterdam.

  Dutch people along the way told them that Canadian troops had entered the city via Berlage bridge a few days after the liberation. What a sight that must have been. As they approach the bridge, Janny notices the tower on the central pillar, sticking out above the rest of the bridge. When you approach the bridge from the city centre, via Amsteldijk, you see the sculpture on top of the tower: Genius of Amsterdam. The patroness rises out of the water, the afternoon sun shimmering on her crown. Ever since they were young, Father pointed out such details to them; she must have paid better attention than she thought.

  Cross the bridge. Rhythmic thumping of tram tracks below the tyres, like rails.

  Janny holds her breath and squeezes her buttocks, tries not to feel the joints, not to hear them.

  Away from that bridge.

  After a week they did get permission to leave – with a tube of pills for her chest pains. Doctor Jim was worried, but her heart was still beating and that was all that mattered. They sat on wooden benches at the back of lorries with strangers, everyone feeling equally miserable and excited, worried what they might find at home, who was still alive, whether their houses were still there. They covered fifteen miles per day, no more, but it was enough, because they had survived where they came from and were not sure if they could bear what was awaiting them. Lientje put on a brave face, but she felt wretched; she secretly took Janny’s heart pills and they almost killed her. Emergency hospital, stomach pumping, but they were on a freight train the next day. Everyone wanted the doors to stay open, but this was not an option.

  ‘Left here,’ Lien says to the dentist.

  Weesperzijde. Amstel 101 – why are they there? Nieuwe Achtergracht is at right angles to Amstel, would they perhaps, all of them, together . . . Bob, the children, Father, Mother and Japie, in a new home?

  Janny’s body presses heavily into the seat as if she wants to stop the car, slow it down. The riverbank and the water blend, perhaps they will drive into the water. Dip down slowly. She sees Bob, Liselotte and Robbie in the water, knee-deep, she sees them from the hill, just behind the forest, where the IJsselmeer opens up like a picture book at your feet. Perhaps they will not recognize her. No hair. No fat on her bones. A few lives older. She turns around as if fleeing is an option. Genius with her sun crown is watching them from Berlage bridge, her hand raised as if to greet and cheer them on.

  Janny bursts out crying. Loud sobbing with snot and tears. She cannot stop. The dentist glances anxiously over his shoulder; they continue on Weesperzijde and Janny is bawling in the back seat. Lien gets furious.

  ‘Be happy, mensch, we’re almost there! I still have to go all the way to Oegstgeest, goddammit.’

  But Janny keeps crying and Lien keeps getting angrier. She turns around in her expensive coat and has a go at her sister.

  ‘Are you out of your mind? Finally, we are going to Bob and the children, and you just sit here weeping! What is this all about? You have really lost it, haven’t you?’

  She curses and rages as Janny so often did to her in the past months.

  ‘You stupid fool! And now you stop it, do you hear me?’

  Through her tears Janny begins to laugh. The dentist drives full speed ahead and feigns an i
nterest in the stately Amstel Hotel as the sisters argue in the back.

  The car has to slow down for the narrow part of the street, the water on their left, canal houses on their right. Just before Carré Theatre, they fall silent. Their parental home lies on Nieuwe Achtergracht on their right. As the car slowly passes the narrow street, they both look – as if there were something to see. As if Joseph were waiting there, his arms open wide, his chest puffed up. No one. The street is empty. They pass Carré, the car crawls up the bridge. Then Lien grabs Janny’s arm.

  ‘Look! Those are your curtains from The Hague!’ She points at the house on the corner, across the bridge. ‘I can see Bob!’

  The dentist has not even stopped before Lien flies out of the car. Janny does not dare to look up, she just sits there, lowered head, hands in her lap; her body has stopped working. Bob comes running outside, pulls open the door, lifts her up like a feather and carries her inside. Robbie is dancing around them, shouting with joy.

  ‘See? My mother is back! Come see, everyone, my mother is back!’ He follows them inside, runs back to the street. ‘You guys, everyone, look, I have my own mother! My mother is back again!’

  The boy trips over his own feet through the front door, falls into his mother’s arms and looks at his father.

  ‘Dad, I told you; Mummy promised me that she would come back.’

  Everyone is standing in the hall, crying, embracing each other. The dentist, Bob, Lien and Janny. Robbie is holding his mother’s pillowcase and hands out raisins to passers-by.

  ‘My mother is home! Come see, everyone, my mother is home!’ he shouts across the river.

  Janny has pulled herself together somewhat and is looking for Liselotte.

  ‘Where’s my girl?’

  She finds the perplexed child hidden in one of the bedrooms, her eyes wide. Janny lifts her up from under the bed and gently presses her daughter to her chest. Robbie snuggles up too and so the three of them sit together on the floor in their new house at Amstel 101.

  ‘Why don’t you stay here tonight?’ Bob suggests to Lien, but she shakes her head.

  ‘I want to go to Oegstgeest, to Eberhard,’ she says. She looks at the dentist questioningly.

  ‘Come,’ he says without any hesitation.

  Piet Verhoeve and Haakon Stotijn tune their instruments and get ready. It is one of their last house concerts with the Blomsma family at Emmalaan in Oegstgeest and they are looking forward to it. Haakon will first play an oboe concert, then Piet will do a piano concert by Beethoven, then there will be a sonata for piano and oboe and they will finish with the wedding cantata by Bach. No stiff, religious piece full of sadness and atonement but light-hearted lyrics sung by a soprano comparing the blossoming of love with the announcement of spring. Mrs Kramer will do the arias.

  The house fills with guests, the mood is cheerful. The concerts have become popular in and around Oegstgeest; in the hungry winter they have been a comfort to many. No one is aware that Piet, as these people know him, has been in hiding with the Blomsma family for almost a year now.

  They play beautifully and have almost come to the end of the concert. Mrs Kramer begins to sing her last arias, accompanied by both Haakon and Piet. Her clear voice is twirling through the liberated streets on the cheerful notes of the cantata:

  Und dieses ist das Glücke,

  Daß durch ein hohes Gunstgeschicke

  Zwei Seelen einen Schmuck erlanget,

  An dem viel Heil und Segen pranget.

  And this is good fortune,

  When through a lofty gift of fate

  Two souls obtain one jewel,

  Resplendent with health and blessing.

  A car drives through Emmalaan, slowly, hesitant. Curious faces appear behind windows; they have not seen a passenger car in months, there were only military vehicles these past years. The high whistles of Haakon’s oboe reach far beyond the house on this silent Sunday afternoon. The car stops abruptly. The door swings open and someone runs up the path.

  Piet lets his fingers dance on the keys; his upper body is swaying along to Bach’s folk music. He looks contently at the living room full of people enjoying the music with their eyes closed. Then suddenly a face appears behind the window. Two large brown eyes, black spiky hair. Mrs Kramer sings on, but his hands freeze above the keys. He jumps off his stool, dives over the grand piano, through and over the audience, runs to the front door and takes Lientje in his arms. They kiss and they cry and they almost squeeze each other to death. Lien is so skinny; Eberhard can feel it in his own bones. They go back inside, together, hand in hand. Everyone has got up and is standing there, glistening eyes, handkerchiefs, excited about this miraculous reunion. Lien is welcomed with a standing ovation. Haakon, too, presses Lien to his chest; the concert is finished.

  ‘No, no, carry on!’ Lien takes her place on one of the seats and looks at her husband expectantly. ‘It’s been so long since I heard good music, please continue.’

  They look at Eberhard questioningly – a short nod and they resume their positions. Mrs Kramer is so upset that she keeps sniffing between notes, but as Haakon introduces the final aria with his solo, her voice does not waver and Eberhard’s fingers do not miss a key. A deafening applause fills the house and the street; they all rise and clap till their hands hurt. Only Lien stays on her chair, too exhausted to get up. Eberhard kneels before her and cups her small face in his hands.

  ‘I’ll pick up Kathinka at Cilia and Albert in Wassenaar tomorrow, and we’ll all be together again.’

  Outside, a car pulls off and drives out of the street. Lien would have loved to thank the dentist for all he did for them, but he quietly left. They never found out who he was.

  Epilogue

  The traffic on the highway whizzes in the distance, withered leaves crunching below my feet – otherwise, all is quiet and deserted. The light between the trees drops onto a tomb resembling an old child’s bed: rusty bars, a gravestone as a headboard. Weeds grow between the bars. I walk towards it, try to make out a name, part of a year – nothing. Next. A sagged stone with a young Christmas tree growing in front of it. I push it aside to see the letters. Faded. Onwards, along decapitated angels and crumbled pillars clearly defined against the sky. I walk cautiously through the thick layer of leaves, scooping them up with each large step I take. It seems like autumn, but this is the hottest day of the year: 37 degrees. Heatwave in the Netherlands.

  I spent the first half hour searching the Roman Catholic Cemetery. I came via the service road, the busy junction, and walked straight to this vast field; the graves were clearly visible from the street. The cemetery looked well maintained, with shiny tombstones and framed footpaths. An elderly lady with a watering can was tending her husband’s grave; one morning each week, she entrusted me. There were few trees there – the sun pounded on my crown and sweat ran down my temples. Yet in the corner of my eyes I saw the woman pacing back and forth across the grounds, towards the tap.

  I walked and read, row after row, tombstone after tombstone. Years that reminded me of grandparents and years that reminded me of friends. I skipped the years that reminded me of my children and after a while I just stood there in the middle of the cemetery, slowly turning around. Everything seemed too new to me, too just-dead. I remembered an article about the shortage of space in the Netherlands, the reusing of graves. My heart sank. The elderly lady had been keeping a close eye on me all the while and could no longer bear it.

  ‘Who are you looking for, child?’

  We stood opposite each other, separated by ten rows of tombstones. I explained and she thought, stared into the distance as the full watering can stretched her arm. I felt bad. Of course this woman did not know where I should be looking, but I had made her an accomplice.

  ‘Have you been to the Old Cemetery yet?’

  I sprang up.

  ‘Isn’t this it?’

  She laughed and shook her head.

  ‘This is the Catholic Cemetery, that is where the Protestan
ts and the Jews are.’

  She pointed at a place behind us, between the trees.

  ‘The Old Cemetery of Naarden?’

  She nodded and as I thanked her, I began to walk, excited by this new possibility. Although I was not expecting to find much in that small blind spot, wedged in by a residential area and the junction of the Jan Tabak Hotel.

  ‘I’ll walk with you.’

  A little further on, the woman walked in the same direction, parallel to me, the watering can still in her hand. We met at the gate.

  ‘Look . . .’ She pointed to a path that disappeared between the trees. ‘When you walk up that path you will see a fence on your left. That’s the Old Cemetery of Naarden. I don’t know if you can get in.’

  I thanked her again and walked up the path, into the thicket. The trees closed behind my back and suddenly I found myself surrounded by foliage. A large steel gate between sagged pillars. Closed. A smaller gate to its left. A push, the sound of scraping steel and I was inside.

  It is huge, perhaps three times the size of the place where I just was, and it is beautiful. A central avenue lined with lime trees stretches out in front of me. A mishmash of overgrown monuments on both sides. Bluestone surrounded by wild grass, wooden crosses decorated with garlands of ivy. Broken marble covers stones with velvet moss growing out. Organized chaos, divided into blocks by yew hedges.

  I wander between corroded fences and wild bushes, stop at a neo-Gothic church on a family grave, discover mini chapels and timeless ornaments. It feels as if I have discovered a secret spot at one of the busiest junctions in this area.

  I cannot remember being this surprised by a place in these surroundings before. Yes, I suddenly realize, I can. Once before: the first time I drove up the forest path towards The High Nest, when the house and the garden revealed themselves to me.