by Michael Dean
The Jewish boxers gave that a laugh; Gerrit and his followers joined in. ‘We know where you’re off to, Joel. You Yids talk so loudly, half Amsterdam knows. We’re coming with you. There’s more of us on the way.’
Joel was silent for a moment. ‘Why?’
‘Why?’ Gerrit looked round at his followers. ‘Why? … Because, Joel, you’re our fucking Jews. That’s why. We’ll fucking beat you up. And we don’t like it when Nazis, or their monkeys in the WA, try and do it for us.’
Ben Bril and a couple of the other Jews clenched their fists at this, but Joel and most of the rest of them laughed. Manny’s laughter was among the loudest.
*
Joel Cosman’s knokploeg - resistance group - filed silently out of De Jonge Bokser, with Manny keeping close to Joel. They were immediately joined by two more of Gerrit Romijn’s Catholics. More slipped into the file as they made their way along Rapenburger Straat, then past the imposing Portuguese Synagogue on Jonas Daniel Meyer Plein, to the head of the Blaauw Brug. It was this bridge that linked the Waterloo Plein Market, along with the rest of the Jewish Quarter, to the parts of Amsterdam west of the Amstel River.
‘Tell us where you want us to go, Joel,’ Gerrit Romijn murmured, putting his gang under Cosman’s command.
Joel shot him a grateful look. He waved his ecumenical knokploeg into portals and down alleyways, right at the top of Nieue Amstel Straat, where it meets the bridge.
They’d had word the WA were coming into the Jewish Quarter that morning, but were not sure what time. They were also not sure how many.
When he saw them, even Joel whistled. Previous WA incursions into the Waterloo Plein Market, and the other Jewish market at Uilenburg, had been by a kringen – a circle of five or six of their thugs - armed with clubs or iron bars. They picked on isolated Jewish traders and beat them up.
This was very different. There was a block of maybe fifty black-uniformed Weer Afdeling, marching in formation across the Blaauw Brug, some carrying staves and iron bars over their shoulders. They were chanting one of their marching songs – Juden an der Wand, Jews to the Wall. A few of them had brass knuckles around their clenched fists.
Manny looked at Joel Cosman, who was in the same doorway, along with two others. Joel tensed. He timed his call just right:
About half the WA block were still on the bridge when the first of them drew level with the first of the doorways on Nieue Amstel Straat. At Joel’s roared command of ‘Now!
Now! Now!’ the knokploeg and the Catholics flew at the bunched WA-men, and laid into them.
Manny ran as fast as he could at a WA-man one and a half times his size. He shoulder-charged him off balance, flailing at him, windmilling with both fists, thrilled he was making contact. All around him, the WA were getting the worst of it. Manny glimpsed Ben Bril, no doubt happy to be free of the Queensberry Rules, kicking a WA-man in the knee, before delivering a crisp uppercut that sent him down to the pavement.
Gerrit Romijn and Joel Cosman were fighting back to back. The WA-men hardly had room to use their staves; quite a few of them, especially the ones on the bridge, turned and ran. Manny felt himself being spun round and saw the sneering, narrow face of a WA-man, who hit him in the mouth. Manny went down.
What really hurt was scraping his face on the grit of the road. His spectacles fell off; he scrambled to retrieve them. The WA-man stood over him, aiming a kick, but Manny rolled away. Somebody, Manny thought it was the huge Lard Zilverberg, turned his assailant round and thumped him in the bread-basket, doubling him over.
Manny sat up in the road, feeling woozy, tasting his blood as it trickled into his mouth. Quite a few of the WA were lying unconscious on the ground. Others were kneeling, or leaning against the walls of buildings, moaning. There was the sound of gunshots. He saw a green-uniformed German Orpo firing into the air. Where had they come from? Everybody - WA and the knokploeg - started to run for it.
Manny caught sight of another Orpo He was carefully aiming his pistol at one of the fleeing Jews. Joel Cosman appeared from nowhere and hit the Mof on the point of his jaw. He went down as if poleaxed, hitting his head a crack on the kerb. Joel bent over the fresh-faced German. Manny joined him, kneeling down, to see if he could help.
There was a trickle of dark blood coming from the back of the Orpo’s head, and another down his nose. He was obviously dead.
*
The knokploeg scattered. Manny headed back to his room in Batavia Straat, but at the last moment, he knocked on Tinie’s door, instead.
Tinie had been a motherly little soul, even at the age of eight, in first class at cheder – Hebrew classes. At that age, they kept the girls in with the boys. As she grew older, became more womanly, it seemed to Manny that she grew warier – more careful of giving from her full heart. But underneath, he thought, she was just the same - overflowing with tenderness.
Nothing happened when he rapped on her door. He was keenly disappointed. He listened at the door, in case his Uncle Max was there.
Tinie’s father, Simon Emmerik, had been a clerk in the Department of Trade and Industry – Hirschfeld’s department. He had been dismissed after the Nazi Ariërverklaring had first identified all the Jews in the civil service, then cleared them out. Simon Emmerik had no access to his savings - all Jewish bank accounts were frozen. The Emmerik family were near destitute, hungry.
Simon deteriorated rapidly under the perceived shame of his failure to provide. He developed bronchitis, and pains in his arms and chest from angina. He became an invalid, lying on the sofa in the dark.
Unable to find work, Tinie, an only child, said she would leave home, to save them the money for her keep. Her parents had sullenly but instantly agreed; too broken even to ask questions. She had found herself the cheapest room she could. She knew what she had to do; other young women from the Jewish community were doing it too.
Like the others, Tinie let it be known that her body would be available to a man she knew, on a regular basis, in return for financial help and, if possible, protection. The only men these young women knew who had the sort of money to help were friends of their fathers – like Manny’s Uncle Max.
Hirschfeld had known Simon Emmerik and his family for twenty years, since Tinie was a toddler, both as Simon’s superior at work, and through the synagogue. He paid Tinie enough to stop her family going hungry; he also paid the rent for the room. In return, he visited whenever he wanted.
Just as Manny was turning away, the door opened.
‘Manny! Oh Manny, what’s happened to you?’
‘It’s not as bad as it looks. I was, um, a bit unlucky. Can I come in? Tinie, have you been crying?’
‘No,’ Tinie said, dabbing at her tears.
Manny stepped into the poky, musty little room. It was so dark in here, he put the light on to read the newspaper when he came to see her, even at midday. It was also permanently ice-box cold - the sun pierced the narrow tenement street, finding its way in through the grimy lozenge of a window for no more than an hour, late every day. And Tinie carefully rationed the precious paraffin for the feeble heater.
‘Has Max been here?’
She bustled about, folding the camp-bed back flush to the wall, with a trace of embarrassment, to make more space. He looked away, not showing her he’d noticed the semen stains on the grubby towelling sheet. He’d already spotted the used condom in the waste-paper basket when he came in.
‘I’ll get your face cleaned up,’ she said. ‘Sit in the armchair where I can get at you.’
He grabbed her wrist as she passed. She was wearing a worn, tight red pullover and a long, blue woollen skirt. He repeated it, shouting: ‘Has Max been here? He has, hasn’t he? The place stinks of him.’
‘Yes! He has! You’ve just missed him.’ She looked at him, tenderly. ‘I’m alright, Manny. Truly I am. Please let go of my wrist, then I can see to your face. Anyway, you’re hurting me.’
He was mortified. ‘Sorry! Sorry, Tinie.’ He let go of her.
She was gone for ages. When she came back, her cheeks were flushed.
‘Those kids! Little urchins. They tied string across the stairs. I went flying. I was lucky the bowl didn’t smash. The other day the little horrors caught the night soil man.’
‘I know. He’s the first prize. Cover the steps in shit, and if possible break the night soil man’s leg. They compete with each other. I think there’s a league …’
She laughed.
He leaned back in the one battered armchair, took off his spectacles and shut his eyes.
She put the heavy bowl of cold water down on a rickety gate-leg table, fetched a sliver of soap and some linen cloth from the dresser, broke off a corner of the soap and dropped it into the water. Then she soaked the cloth and dabbed at his face with it.
Manny dabbled two fingers in the water. It was cold and pure. The new sewage system, and their proximity to the harbour, made the clean water the pride of the Jewish Quarter.
‘Get your fingers out!’ She smacked his hand, fondly. ‘Naughty boy.’
‘Sorry, Tinie!’ He sucked his wet fingers. Even with traces of soap, the water tasted good.
She shot him a tender look, as she gently but thoroughly cleaned his grazes.
‘You should have been a nurse.’
‘I should have been anything but what I am.’
‘Tinie, don’t!’
‘Hmm. So what have you been doing, then?’
He opened one eye. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’
3
Hirschfeld’s meeting had been called to discuss the Aryanization of retail trade, starting with the market traders. He sat at a long table, in a functional-looking Meeting Room in the Town Hall, waiting. The other two had not arrived yet.
He reviewed his operating principles, when dealing with the Occupying Authority:
Principle: Prevent chaos, maintain public order.
Tactic 1 : Avoid friction with the Occupying Authority.
Tactic 2: Discourage industrial sabotage, or any other opposition by the civilian population – including the windy and pointless underground newspapers. Channel any attempt to damage the Nazis through de Tourton Bruyns and the resistance.
Principle: Protect Dutch prosperity.
Tactic 1: Keep contracts in Holland; stop the transfer of work to Germany.
Tactic 2: Establish quotas and schedules, let the Nazis see they were being met.
Principle: Protect the Jews, as far as possible.
Tactic 1: Deny the Nazis information, without appearing to do so.
Tactic 2: Delay, delay, delay. Obfuscate.
Delay, delay, delay … He thought back to the start of the occupation. No delaying then. No time to catch one’s breath. The Nazis had bombed the Alexander Barracks, in the middle of the night. Hirschfeld had heard the crump of the bombs; he’d gone to stand by the window. Else had run into his bedroom in her nightgown. They had watched, as flickers of flame snaked up into the night sky.
While they were standing there, frightened and confused, there was a knock at the front door. He and his sister stared at each other. Hirschfeld went down and opened the door, still in his pyjamas and dressing gown. It was his chauffeur, Hendrik Vandenputte. Hirschfeld’s departmental Mercedes was parked outside.
‘There’s been a call, meneer…’
Hirschfeld ran upstairs to get dressed.
They drove in silence to the Prime Minister’s flat, at 30 Bezuidenhout. The other ministers were all there – Steenberghe, Van Kleffens, Welter … The Prime Minister, Dirk de Geer, had waited for him before they all opened the sealed envelopes with the Contingency Plan for a German invasion.
‘It’s over…’ de Geer mumbled, before he had even finished reading. ‘The government’s going to London, along with Her Majesty and the rest of the Royal Family. We’ll all rest up there, before travelling to America. The Nazis will be in London in weeks, if not days.’
Hirschfeld nodded, stunned.
‘You’re to stay here, Hirschfeld,’ de Geer continued. ‘Look after the Department of Trade and Industry, as best you can. Keep control of the economy in Dutch hands for as long as possible. You know the Germans; you know what to do. For God’s sake don’t antagonise them, there’ll be hell to pay for our people.’
The head of the defeated Dutch forces, General Winkelman, called for a return to work. Unemployment had shot up to an untenable 26%, higher than at any time during the ‘30s.
At Hirschfeld’s first meeting with the Nazi Reischskommissar - Seyss-Inquart - it was agreed that the metalworkers would go back to work, making ships for the German navy. Using civilian labour to help the occupying power’s war effort was against international law. But the metalworkers had no work at all. If they went much longer without pay, they’d starve.
Sabotage in the shipyards in north Amsterdam started almost immediately, inspired by the likes of Hirschfeld’s nephew, Manny. There were go-slows; there was organised absenteeism, deliberate shoddy workmanship and wholesale diversion of the plating metal to make cooking utensils and other goods.
All this was against the national interest: Dutch labour to work in German factories was voluntary, except for the unemployed. But industrial saboteurs were sent by force, if they were caught. This could spread. Hirschfeld feared it could pave the way for Holland to become a vast slave- labour pool for Germany, with no industry of its own. Shipbuilding would be transferred to Bremen, Hirschfeld’s own birthplace, using deported Dutch workers under slave conditions.
So when the Nazis asked him to draft a proclamation, demanding a stop to economic sabotage, what was he to do? Along with two other Dutch Secretary Generals, Schriek from the Department of Justice, and Frederiks, from the Home Office, he had put out the notice that had made him the most hated man in Holland:
It said that in these grave times, damaging the occupying power by acts of sabotage was futile. It said that those who tried to do so were harming only their fellow Dutch citizens. And it ended with a thinly disguised appeal to turn saboteurs over to the Occupying Authority.
He had acted – he had always acted – in accordance with the Beamtengeist – the public-spiritedness of public officials. Dutch public officials were one of the pillars of the state. They did their duty to the state, via their political masters. They had always done so, for centuries.
And anyway, if he had refused to draft and sign the proclamation, the Nazis would have sacked him as Secretary General and replaced him with someone who would. They may not have appointed another Dutchman at all. The last vestige of a restraining influence would have gone.
That didn’t stop the wilder elements in the resistance attacking him – attacking him even more than Frederiks and Schriek, for some reason. The personal detail in the underground press attacks could only have been supplied by Manny. One of the abusive titles they gave him – Number One Bootlicker – had been coined by Manny in his, Hirschfeld’s, own dining room.
Hirschfeld glanced at his watch. It was exactly noon. The door swung open and Rost van Tonningen walked in – eyes gleaming. He gave Hirschfeld a barely polite ‘Goedemorgen’, sat directly opposite him at the rectangular table, and stared at him.
Although present as head of the Department of Special Economic Affairs, created by the Nazis to increase National Socialist influence on economic life, van Tonningen was wearing his NSB uniform– black with the light blue collar patches of a political leader.
Brilliant though he was, van Tonningen had weaknesses: He could be slapdash, on occasion, through over-confidence. He was often badly prepared for meetings like this one. Hirschfeld hoped he would not have checked the relevant statistics, as he himself had done, so carefully.
This lack of attention to detail was, in Hirs
chfeld’s view, typical of fanatics. And van Tonningen was nothing if not a fanatic: He wanted the total Germanization of the Netherlands, including the replacement of the Dutch language by German. He also viscerally hated all Jews.
Hirschfeld was afraid of him, physically. Van Tonningen was quite capable of personal violence; he had started and finished the only fist-fight in the history of the Dutch second chamber. Hirschfeld poured himself some water from the dusty jug on the table, as a way of avoiding his gaze.
Eventually, the towering figure of Obergruppenführer Hanns Albin Rauter – he was six and a half feet tall - rolled in, in his Sipo/SD uniform. He was fifteen minutes late.
Rauter reported directly to Himmler. His brief, as head of security, meant he attended all economic meetings, as security was the basis of all activity – economic or otherwise.
‘Hou Zee,’ he said to Rost van Tonningen. It was the NSB greeting, an old sailor’s cry - Hold Steady.
‘Hou Zee, Herr Obergruppenführer. And a very good day to you,’ van Tonningen shot back, in sing-song, Vienna-accented German. He had worked as an economist in Vienna, for the League of Nations.
‘’Morning, Hirschfeld’
‘Good morning, Herr Rauter.’
Having established who was in charge, Rauter allowed himself a smile, stretching the scar which ran from below his bottom lip, diagonally across his chin. Rauter had told him, in detail, more than once, how his bravery under fire in Rhombon in 1915 had resulted in this wound. It was puckered into a cleft, reminding Hirschfeld of a vagina, opening and closing as Rauter spoke.
Hirschfeld moved uneasily on his hard chair, moving his weight from one buttock to the other. In response to a nod from Rauter, he opened the meeting.
‘As a first step toward the Aryanization of the retail sector,’ the Secretary General said, ‘we wish to begin with the market traders and peddlers, establishing who is a Jew and who is not.’
‘Oh, come on, Hirschfeld!’ Van Tonningen banged the table, his handsome, small-featured face flushed. ‘As two markets consist entirely of Jews, and all other markets are Jew-free, we just withdraw the licences of anyone trading in the two Jewish markets.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Hey presto! The markets Aryanized! No more Jewish traders!.’
