by Michael Dean
The Queen passed him to the head of the B. I. – Bureau Inlichtingen, Dutch Intelligence - a flamboyant bull of a man called François van’t Sant. General van’ t Sant interviewed Lievers, and read him for what he was. The BI, reckoned the general, did not need obvious wide-boys like Lievers – he even had a pencil moustache.
Pretending to be impressed, van’t Sant did what he always did with potential Dutch agents not up to B.I standards – he passed them to the SOE with a high recommendation. van’t Sant’s antipathy to the head of SOE’s N section, Nigel Laming, went all the way back to 1916. They had fallen out over a case, when the two of them had been based in Rotterdam.
N section were naturally on the lookout for Dutch nationals to drop back into Holland. They regarded Lievers as quite a catch. For one thing, his mother was German, so he spoke the language perfectly. He was landed back on the Dutch coast by Motor Torpedo Boat, to set up his own circuit.
One of his Dutch reception committee, at Scheveningen, smilingly said there was a checkpoint ahead, as they were walking along together. Better to hand over his pistol, and let them smuggle it through. Lievers handed it over, butt first, whereupon he was handcuffed and taken to the old Colonial Building, on Mauritskade.
The first interview lasted forty hours, with short breaks for sleep and food. But to Lievers’ amazement, he was not tortured or beaten. He was allowed to wear his own clothes. The food was adequate; he was even given a small tobacco ration. He had a spacious cell. His SOE training had made much of stool pigeons, but there was nobody else in the cell with him.
He was interrogated by an ordinary-looking chap in his mid-forties - balding, dressed in grey flannels and a tweed jacket, smelling of tobacco. He introduced himself as Herr Giskes, of the Abwehr. Giskes had the manner of a policeman, and his questions about Lievers’ background and contacts sounded, to the experienced Lievers, like the police questions of his boyhood and early youth.
When these initial questions were finished, Giskes gave Lievers a cigarette and smoked one himself. ‘I used to work for a tobacco company,’ he confided, absently.
‘You can have as many ciggies as you like.’
Lievers was silent.
Giskes knew every detail of every course of Lievers’ SOE training. He took Lievers back through it. He knew every instructor, every participant, every weapon. He knew the interior decoration at The Vineyards, the big house at Beaulieu where Lievers had done his radio training. He knew which plays Peter Follis, the Disguises instructor, had been in before the war. He knew which jokes ‘Killer’ Green made, while demonstrating burglary techniques.
At the end of the first session, Giskes gave him a guided tour of the cells, showing him a dozen captured Dutch agents. All of them, Giskes said, were ‘singing like nightingales.’ Lievers believed him. Seeing them all there, captured, was demoralising. As it was meant to be.
In the end, Lievers was broken not by torture, but by hopelessness.
*
Robert Roet had been provided with forged travel passes and train tickets from Scheveningen to The Hague, and from The Hague to Amsterdam. Reaching
Amsterdam’s Central Station just before midday, he stored his rucksack containing the wireless transmitter and his gun in a locker. Then he had five or six oude jenevers – the real thing! - throwing them down his throat at the station bar.
He had five hours to kill before he was due to meet Lievers. He surprised himself by deciding to find Manny. He would drop in on the Hirschfeld house.
As he crossed the bridge over Herengracht, strolling by weeping willows, memories of Else stirred him, in a way they never had before. He cherished her vulnerability, her innocence, her unaffected joy at him. Even her plainness was poignant to him.
He understood, with a frightening finality, that he had made a mess of his life. There was no appeal against such a realisation. He had had no happiness, and precious little contentment. Such worldly success as he had, was dross. He had run out of steam, prematurely old, and he had nothing. He deserved the burning misery, that no amount of gin could cauterize. The Black Birds were flying – wiping out the light
Else answered his authoritative rap on the door and threw herself into his arms. She was loving and unjudgemental. And he was massively disappointed. The reality let him down - again. The greater the expectation, the more it let him down. As he arrived, he couldn’t wait to leave. It was always like this …
She took his hand and led him into the parlour. There, her hands on his shoulders, she looked up into his eyes.
‘You’ve lost weight. Have you been drinking?’
‘These are hard times.’
‘We knew you were coming.’
‘Good. I always want you to know my codename. If anything happens, I don’t want to just disappear. I’m called Jan Veen now. What’s that?’ He nodded at a Hebrew primer, hurriedly placed face down on a table, when she had rushed to open the door.
‘I’m learning Hebrew. Trying to … ’ She dropped her gaze, then blurted out ‘If they kill me, I want to know who I am, before I die.’
He nodded. He thought it was a good idea. It was not his way, but he approved.
She made him coffee, real coffee, and put sweet biscuits - kichels – on a plate.
‘These are good,’ he said.
‘I made them!’
She looked pleased with herself. It irritated him.
‘How’s Max?’
‘Oh, you know. Working hard..’
‘What’s he doing?’
‘Don’t you know?’
‘No.’
‘I thought everybody knew. He’s Secretary General for Trade and Industry.’ She looked proud. ‘People say he’s the most influential Dutchman in Holland.’
‘That’s like being the most influential lunatic in the asylum.’
‘Oh Robert! You always judge him so harshly.’
‘So he works for the Nazis?’
‘No! He works for the Dutch people. He gets the best deal he can for us all.’
‘Where’s his study?’
Else jumped up, automatically doing his bidding. Then a look of panic crossed her face. ‘You can’t …’
‘Oh, yes I can. I’ll find it anyway, Else.’
‘It’s on the second floor. Second door on the right.’
‘Else get me some paper, please. And a pen.’
For a moment, both of them wondered if she would obey. She stood up, walked out without a word, and was gone a long time. When she came back, she had a writing block and a pencil. ‘This was all I could find,’ she said.
He nodded, took the writing materials and went upstairs to Hirschfeld’s study.
Dust motes flew in the sterile-looking room, overlooking Wertheim Park. Robert wondered if there would be anything relating to Hirschfeld’s work here. Hirschfeld was certainly the type to take work home, but would the Nazis trust him with anything secret, and so worth having?
On the desk, there were notes and a draft of a speech Hirschfeld had made to some shipyard workers. None of the drawers in the desk were locked. There was a file of articles on the Special Account Facility he had set up, before the invasion. It was simple and ingenious: Any German company wishing to trade with Holland paid the money directly to their central bank, in Berlin. A Dutch company did the same – only to the Dutch central bank. The two central banks then dealt with each other..
Robert sat at Hirschfeld’s desk, methodically reading his way through every document in it. A pattern emerged: German uniforms were being made in Holland, and so were German boots. Germany would be taking Dutch electricity. Farm produce, too, was being diverted to the Reich. Dutch industry was being re-tooled to make weapons for the Nazis. Robert began copying down facts, figures, locations, details.
It was clear from Hirschfeld’s notes that he was opposing these measures; it was equally clear that he was failing.
Else was watching him from the doorway. ‘I can’t let you do this if it will get Max into trou
ble.’
Robert shook his head, copying information. ‘It won’t,’ he said. Else still looked miserable. ‘Look Else, there is great propaganda value in this. The Moffen clearly want to make a slave-state out of Holland, no matter what they say. And it might help us to identify some targets.’
He didn’t say that he already had the best target of all, Manny’s sketch of the shipyard where the Arminius was being constructed.
‘So where’s Manny?’ he said, when they were back in the parlour.
Else’s coarse, sad features sagged. ‘He’s on the run,’ she said, miserably. They say he killed an Orpo. It’s ridiculous but …’ she shrugged.
Robert burst out laughing. ‘Killed an Orpo! Manny! They’ve got the wrong man, surely?’
‘Oh Robert! It isn’t funny.’
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘No, but Tinie will.’
‘Tinie Emmerik?’
‘Yes. I’ll give you her address.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Will I see you again?’’
‘I’ve no idea.’
*
It was less than a five-minute walk to the Jewish Quarter. Robert crossed Jodenbree Straat, suddenly feeling, not exactly happier, but at least more alive and alert. It was years since he’d been here – down in the teeming lower depths. It made him tingle.
These grimy streets were permanently crowded. Some of the alleyways were so narrow, even the Boldoot - the night soil cart – couldn’t get through. Robert glanced up at the tenement windows. He saw a tobacco worker, high up at a third storey window, placidly rolling cigars. The man looked at him and smiled.
Vendors were plying their trades in the street, because there was no room in their houses. Robert passed rag sellers, sellers of fat to make candles, sellers of trashy glass jewellery and trinkets, sellers of cloth, of second-hand sewing-machines, of nougat. Trash, all of it. Pathetic.
Ragged children in wooden shoes scampered over piles of excrement and dodged between the vendors. Two boys, in torn pullovers and filthy short trousers, were having a sword fight with long wooden swords. Their legs were unnaturally thin, like sticks of French bread.
Behind them was a ragamuffin of about ten, standing passively next to his mother, who sat weaving on her doorstep. Robert realised he was blind – trachoma - there was a lot of it in the Jewish Quarter. He slipped a coin into the boy’s hand. It was a stuiver – five cents – the first coin he found. The boy looked disappointed, as he felt it. Robert thought about giving him a kwartje, but didn’t. The boy’s mother ignored him, not breaking the rhythm of her weaving.
The stench was medieval, as the fetid brown waters of the Oude Schans, the Uilenburgergracht, the Markengracht and the Nieuwe Heerengracht all competed to impose their distinctive gamey reek.
These wretched folk of the Jewish Quarter, Robert thought, were a world away from the thriving Jews of the Spinoza Quay and Seraphati Straat – or the white-table-cloth Jews of the Transvaal, Retief Straat or Plantage. Let alone the handful of mansion-Jews of Lairesse Straat, out beyond Vondel Park. It took the Nazis to unify them all.
He turned into Batavia Straat.
Tinie had never met him, but she gave a cry of recognition as soon she opened the door: ‘Oh! It’s Robert, isn’t it? You’re Manny’s father.’ Before he could say a word, she kissed him three times, right-left-right, on alternate cheeks, in the Amsterdam fashion. ‘Oh, Manny will be so pleased! Come in, come in. Sit down.’
Robert sat, trying to conceal his dismay at the dismal room.
‘It will do for now,’ Tinie said, reading his expression. ‘Can I get …’
‘No, no,’ he said, hastily. ‘I’m fine.’
There was a rap on the door. Robert tensed. Tinie mouthed ‘It’s OK’ and opened it a fraction.
‘Mevrouw Kuipers!’
‘May I come in a moment? I need to speak to you about something.’
‘Not at the moment, mevrouw Kuipers. It’s not convenient.’
Mevrouw Kuipers peered over Tinie’s shoulder. ‘I have been asked to move. But you have another gentleman caller, haven’t you? I’m sure they take precedence over my little problems.’
‘It’s not a question of precedence. I …’
‘I have been asked to move, you see. I don’t take gentleman callers. But I am not a Jewess, like you. They want only Jews to live here. So it is I who must move. My father and grandfather lived here, before it was called the Jewish Quarter. But now I must leave …’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Yes, so am I. Your people have driven me out …’
Tinie shut the door in her face. ‘Come on,’ she said, in a small tight voice to Robert. ‘It’s time we got out of here. I know where Manny is. He’s only just gone there, just today. I’ll take you.’
‘How do you manage, with that monster next door?’ Robert asked Tinie, when they were in the street.
Tinie shrugged. ‘I do worry that she’ll report me,’ she blurted out – something about Robert inspired trust.
‘Report you for what?’ Robert said.
Tinie blushed, but did not answer.
Neither of them looked Jewish, a huge advantage for Jews in occupied Amsterdam. Tinie decided to risk catching a tram. In any case, the knokploeg hideout was out of walking distance. She had been relieved when Lard Zilverberg turned up, out of the blue, to collect Manny’s clothes, and his stuff. – relieved Manny would be safer with them than with her. She had insisted on knowing where he was hiding out, though. And Lard had told her. He had also sealed up the hideout he had made for Manny.
About half-way through the tram journey, four uniformed NSBers boarded the tram, two at each end. They walked through, staring at all the passengers. None of them struck the NSBers as Jewish, so they got off at the next stop. Captain Robert Roet’s face was like stone.
*
When Robert and Tinie arrived at the hideout, a frantic Manny did not know who to hug first. He finished up by stretching his small frame as far it would go round both of them. He then warmly introduced Joel to Robert - ‘He’s my long-lost father.’
Then Manny and Tinie sat on a bunk, holding hands, looking at each other.
Robert had a long talk with Joel – he had time before the meeting with Lievers. Joel told him all about the knokploeg; about the hideout, about ambushing the NSB on the Blaauw Brug; about this morning’s operation to steal the ID cards, ration cards and clothes coupons. Joel also showed him Lard’s work, filling in false identities on the ID cards.
Robert was impressed. He said he would like to use Joel’s boys when he blew up the Armenius, especially as Manny knew the shipyard, and had provided the drawing. Manny gave a wave from the bunk, as his name was mentioned. He was riding high …
They needed only to arrange an explosives drop, Robert explained. He said he would consult the resistance man on the ground, Lievers, about arranging it. He had Manny’s sketch of the docks ready to show him. He said he would tell Lievers about the knokploeg, too. He looked at his watch. It was time to go and meet Lievers.
10
Hirschfeld was working in his office by artificial light. He had been arriving earlier and earlier, and had today started work at six am. It would be another half-an-hour or so before the first light of dawn touched the waters of the Binnen Amstel, and reflected them up to his window. He was now doing two full-time jobs. He felt like a man with both arms stretched upward, holding up the ceiling.
The establishment of the newspaper, Het Joodsche Weekblad, to aid communication between the Occupying Authority and the Jewish population, had been the most difficult administrative task of his career.
The main problem was, there was no item more difficult to get hold of in the Netherlands than a printing press. They were associated, in the mind of the Occupying Authority, with subversive, underground material. This was ironic, in a way, because the various Geuzen groups could rarely afford even a second-hand printing press. Hirschfeld had not seen a
single piece of subversive literature printed on one - it was all banda machines, spirit duplicators, or even scruffy hand-written pieces of paper.
But armed only with his single-sheet typed authority from Rauter, which he dare not let out of his sight, he had to order one to be sent to the home of his Jewish editor, Simon Emmerik, smack in the middle of the Jewish Quarter. He also had to raise the finance for the printing press from various Jewish sources. Rauter had laughed his head off when he had suggested an allowance to set up the newspaper.
Still, the press was in place now. So any notices from the Occupying Authority could be printed out, as well as Het Joodsche Weekblad, itself.
He was off, soon, to see Simon, to check on progress. But before that, he had to digest a report from Peter Lambooy, of the Nederlandsche Scheepsbouw Maatschappij. Sabotage at the NSM shipyard, it appeared, was on the increase, despite the pay-rise he had arranged for the workers.
Lambooy’s report detailed all the tricks the workers got up to: Tiny flecks of grit were being dropped in lubricating oil; parts were being sent to the wrong section of the yard; the wrong parts were being ordered; unnecessary signatures of authorisation were being sought for every little thing; rivets and screws were left loose or, occasionally, deliberately over-tightened.
Hirschfeld took his spectacles off and smacked Lambooy’s report in exasperation. There was nothing new about any of this. The cruiser Prinz Eugen was under repair at Schiedam at this very moment - a major contract for the Netherlands, won by him. And the same sabotage problems were being encountered there – that and spare parts deliberately being sent to the wrong area of Holland.
What was so annoying, to Hirschfeld, was the whining tone of Lambooy’s report. He seemed to hold Hirschfeld responsible for the problems the sabotage had caused. In fact, it was Lambooy’s job, as Director of Production, to get to grips with these issues.
There was a noise from the outer office. Hirschfeld listened, taut as a wire. His secretary was not due in for another hour.
‘It’s only me,’ she called out.
