"The census provided the Germans with a map showing the name, address, age, and sex of nearly every Jew in Holland. We foolishly gave them the keys to our destruction."
"Did your father register?"
"He considered ignoring the order, but in the end decided he had no choice but to comply. We lived at a prominent address in the most visible Jewish neighborhood in the city."
The census was followed by a cascade of new decrees that served to further isolate, humiliate, and impoverish the Jews of Holland. Jews were forbidden to donate blood. Jews were forbidden to enter hotels or eat in restaurants. Jews were forbidden to attend the theater, visit public libraries, or view art exhibits. Jews were forbidden to serve on the stock exchange. Jews could no longer own pigeons. Jewish children were barred from "Aryan" schools. Jews were required to sell their businesses to non-Jews. Jews were required to surrender art collections and all jewelry except for wedding bands and pocket watches. And Jews were required to deposit all savings in Lippmann, Rosenthal & Company, or LiRo, a formerly Jewish-owned bank that had been taken over by the Nazis.
The most draconian of the orders was Decree 13, issued on April 29, 1942, requiring Jews over the age of six to wear a yellow Star of David at all times while in public. The badge had to be sewn—not pinned but sewn—above the left breast of the outer garment. In a further insult, Jews were required to surrender four Dutch cents for each of the stars along with a precious clothing ration.
"My mother tried to make a game out of it in order not to alarm us. When we wore them around the neighborhood, we pretended to be very proud. I wasn't fooled, of course. I'd just turned eleven, and even though I didn't know what was coming, I knew we were in danger. But I pretended for the sake of my sister. Rachel was young enough to be deceived. She loved her yellow star. She used to say that she could feel God's eyes upon her when she wore it."
"Did your father comply with the order to surrender his paintings?"
"Everything but the Rembrandt. He removed it from its stretcher and hid it in a crawl space in the attic, along with a sack of diamonds he'd kept after selling his business to a Dutch competitor. My mother wept as our family heirlooms left the house. But my father said not to worry. I'll never forget his words. 'They're just objects,' he said. 'What's important is that we have each other. And no one can take that away.'"
And still the decrees kept coming. Jews were forbidden to leave their homes at night. Jews were forbidden to enter the homes of non-Jews. Jews were forbidden to use public telephones. Jews were forbidden to ride on trains or streetcars. Then, on July 5, 1942, Adolf Eichmann's Central Office for Jewish Emigration dispatched notices to four thousand Jews informing them that they had been selected for "labor service" in Germany. It was a lie, of course. The deportations had begun.
"Did your family receive an order to report?"
"Not right away. The first names selected were primarily German Jews who had taken refuge in Holland after 1933. Ours didn't come until the second week of September. We were told to report to Amsterdam's Centraal Station and given very specific instructions on what to pack. I remember my father's face. He knew it was a death sentence."
"What did he do?"
"He went up to the attic to retrieve the Rembrandt and the bag of diamonds."
"And then?"
"We tore the stars from our clothing and went into hiding."
18
AMSTERDAM
Chiara had been right about Lena Herzfeld. After years of silence, she was finally ready to speak about the war. She did not rush headlong toward the terrible secret that lay buried in her past. She worked her way there slowly, methodically, a school-teacher with a difficult lesson to impart. Gabriel and Chiara, trained observers of human emotion, made no attempt to force the proceedings. Instead, they sat silently on Lena's snow-white couch, hands folded in their laps, like a pair of rapt pupils.
"Are you familiar with the Dutch word verzuiling?" Lena asked.
"I'm afraid not," replied Gabriel.
It was, she said, a uniquely Dutch concept that had helped to preserve social harmony in a country sharply divided along Catholic and Protestant lines. Peace had been maintained not through interaction but strict separation. If one were a Calvinist, for example, one read a Calvinist newspaper, shopped at a Calvinist butcher, cheered for Calvinist sporting clubs, and sent one's children to a Calvinist school. The same was true for Roman Catholics and Jews. Close friendships between Catholics and Calvinists were unusual. Friendships between Jews and Christians of any sort were virtually unheard of. Verzuiling was the main reason why so few Jews were able to hide from the Germans for any length of time once the roundups and deportations began. Most had no one to turn to for help.
"But that wasn't true of my father. Before the war, he made a number of friends outside the Jewish community through his business dealings. There was one man in particular, a Roman Catholic gentleman named Nikolaas de Graaf. He lived with his wife and four children in a house near the Vondelpark. I assume my father paid him a substantial amount of money, but neither of them spoke of such things. We entered the de Graaf house shortly before midnight on the ninth of September, one by one, so that the neighbors wouldn't notice us. We were each wearing three sets of clothing because we didn't dare move about the city with suitcases. A hiding place had been prepared for us in the attic. We climbed the ladder and the door was closed. After that...it was permanent night."
The attic had no amenities other than a few old blankets that had been laid upon the floor. Each morning, Mrs. de Graaf provided a basin of fresh water for rudimentary washing. The toilet was one floor below; for reasons of security, the de Graafs requested its use be limited to two visits per family member each day. Talking above a whisper was forbidden, and there was to be no verbal communication whatsoever at night. Clean clothing was provided once a week, and food was limited to whatever the de Graafs could spare from their own rations. The attic had no window. Lights or candles were not permitted, even on Shabbat. Before long, the entire Herzfeld family was suffering from malnutrition and the psychological effects of prolonged exposure to darkness.
"We were white as ghosts and very thin. When Mrs. de Graaf was cooking, the smell would rise up to the attic. After the family had eaten, she would bring us our portion. It was never enough. But, of course, we didn't complain. I always had the impression that Mrs. de Graaf was very frightened about our presence. She barely looked at us, and our trips downstairs made her edgy. For us, they were the only break from the darkness and the silence. We couldn't read because there was no light. We couldn't listen to the radio or speak because noise was forbidden. At night, we listened to the German razzias and trembled with fear."
The Germans did not conduct the raids alone. They were assisted by special units of the Dutch police known as Schalkhaarders and by a German-created force known as the Voluntary Auxiliary Police. Regarded as fanatical Jew hunters who would stop at nothing to fill their nightly quotas, the Auxiliary officers were primarily members of the Dutch SS and Dutch Nazi party. Early in the deportation process, they were paid seven and a half guilders for each Jew they arrested. But as the deportations steadily drained Holland of its Jews and prey became harder to find, the bounty was increased to forty guilders. In a time of war and economic privation, it was a substantial sum of money, one that led many Dutch citizens to supply information about Jews in hiding for a few pieces of silver.