There can be no doubt about this, in our opinion. O. led the Germans to the address where Dorbeck was staying. The house concerned was rented by a student of theology named Moorlag, an old acquaintance of O.’s: he had previously been a lodger with the O. family at Voorschoten. No one in the world knew O. better than this Moorlag, but he too is dead. His body was found in the street a few days before the liberation, round the corner from where he lived in Amsterdam … Coincidence? By no means! Moorlag is dead, and Dorbeck certainly existed, but he too is dead! Both betrayed by O.
Hidden truths
That the judiciary has failed to make these simple deductions may seem strange, but it is well to bear in mind the following. No prisoner ever tells the whole truth during interrogation. Nor will those conducting the inquiry, in their turn, reveal all they know, in the hope of drawing out the suspect. Thus O. lied to the Germans, the Germans lied to him, and afterwards O. did not tell the whole truth to the British or the Dutch, while the Germans, of course, do nothing but lie when interrogated by their former enemies. They have no interest in helping the Dutch authorities, or in bringing to light the historical truth, their sole commitment being to save their own hides. Consequently we recommend taking no statement whatsoever at face value, but rather bringing reason and logic to bear in fitting together the pieces of this puzzle.
Love
The Germans kept their promise to O.: his girlfriend was not sent to Germany. They expedited O. himself, disguised as a female nurse, to the liberated south. He was driven there by a uniformed German officer in a small car: a DKW. This car was later found in Dordrecht containing the body of the officer, who had been stabbed to death by O.
These facts were conveyed to us by the priest of the church of St Ignatius at Dordrecht, with whom O., still disguised as a nurse, had sought refuge. What better way would there be for O. to remove all suspicion from the minds of the Allies than by killing the German officer?
However, this is not all. On his journey southwards O. paid a visit to his tobacco shop in Voorschoten, where his legal wife Maria Nauta, his first cousin and seven years his senior, was still living. This woman had a relationship with a Nazi sympathiser named Turlings, which was common knowledge in the locality. On the day of O.’s journey, his wife was found dead in her shop. She had been stabbed. Local residents reported having seen a German officer and a nurse leaving the scene in a car prior to the discovery of the body.
We are aware of the objections to our line of reasoning: that all these circumstances give rise to complications that are beyond the judiciary’s remit, who are, after all, concerned exclusively with establishing irrefutable proof against O. They have no interest in composing his biography — a daunting venture by any standards, given the complexity of the affair. Whatever the case may be, O. is not entirely innocent, but neither is he as guilty as some of our countrymen believe. He started out in good faith, and that his wife and her Nazi lover betrayed him is beyond all doubt. In so far as O. was a traitor himself, it was out of love for his friend Mirjam Zettenbaum. It was to save her that he denounced Dorbeck and Moorlag to the Germans. Small wonder that Dorbeck has not turned up.
Hoping to come out of this alive, O. seized the opportunity to take revenge on his wife, no doubt with the half-formed intention of starting a new life with his girlfriend after the war.
Let us return to our first question: why is Miss Zettenbaum keeping silent in Palestine? In the light of the foregoing, does this question merit further investigation? No! The answer is obvious.
She is keeping silent because there is nothing she can say in O.’s defence. Assuming she were actually able to prove that Dorbeck existed, she would at the same time be proving that he was betrayed by O. She is silent out of love for O.
It is probably best for O. if she remains so.
To: Miss Mirjam Zettenbaum
In a kibbutz
Palestine
Camp Eighth Exloërmond
19 October, 1945
Dearest Marianne,
It was only last week that I heard, to my amazement, that you are still alive. I was told by the police. My joy is impossible to describe. This is the first chance I have had to write you a letter. I was convinced you were dead. I went to visit you in the Emma Clinic in Amsterdam, on 6 April. The matron said you couldn’t see anyone. But they did let me see the child. Oh, Marianne, I can’t tell you how I cried, and now that I’m writing this I am crying again. I have nothing, not a single thing, left from the days when we were together, and they were such happy days. The happiest days of my life, and nothing will ever be the same again. Oh, Marianne, I can’t bear to think of you being so far away, but I don’t think I could still make you happy.
Things have gone terribly wrong for me. I am a prisoner. The war has ended, all the occupied countries have been liberated, but I have yet to have a moment’s freedom. I have been through so much, more than I have the strength to tell you, but my suffering is without name. I stand accused of treason. The basest, most evil motives are attributed to me, and everything I do to try and prove my innocence only backfires. Everyone who could have testified in my favour is either dead or impossible to trace. And you know as well as I know — and as my other close friends knew — that I was acting on Dorbeck’s instructions at all times. I’m sure you remember my telling you about Dorbeck, that night at Labare’s, before the place was raided by the Germans. You consoled me, remember? I told you about my absolute dependence on Dorbeck, that without him I was nothing, less than nothing, even. You contradicted me, you said I was a person in my own right, with my own worth.
But, dearest Marianne, things have turned out otherwise. Dorbeck has vanished. Dozens of attempts to track him down have been made, so far without success. There is no trace of him. Sometimes I think he must be dead, then I think the British must be hiding him. And so what I told you was true: without Dorbeck I am nothing, without him coming forward to explain my actions, everything I did in the Resistance can be twisted and distorted into crime and betrayal.
I am not at all well. I have a fever. I cough day and night. I am not being badly treated, but I rarely, if ever, see daylight. The interrogations sometimes go on all night, but I still can’t sleep on the other nights. And yet I am privileged, because I have a cell to myself. The prison camp is an old milk factory. The other rooms are filled to bursting with all sorts of lowlife, former members of the SS, provocateurs of the Sicherheitsdienst and other traitors. It makes me laugh sometimes to think of the company I am in, and then I say to myself: why make such a fuss? It’s all a big mistake, just one insane coincidence on top of another, that’s all. Dorbeck could turn up at any moment, and then everything will be fine.
But I must confess, Marianne, that I sometimes get more worried than is good for me, which is why I want to ask you this: couldn’t you write to the Public Prosecutor of the Special Court and tell them I was definitely in contact with Dorbeck during the German occupation? That I talked to you about him, et cetera. That he really exists. Because the people dealing with my case are so badly informed it sometimes seems they are out to convince me that I made him up.
Turlings, the Nazi who reported me to the Germans, is the only person still alive to have seen Dorbeck. It was after the shooting in Haarlem, at Kleine Houtstraat 32. He saw a man in a grey suit. He thought it was me. When he saw me wearing white shorts a few minutes later, he said: you got changed very quickly! He had seen Dorbeck instead of me.