Josef smiled at the last comment, removing his spectacles and wiping away the tears. With his shaking hands, he opened the rest of the parcel. It was a published book of poetry by Michael Blum called Miji Held—My Hero. He turned to the front page and read the inscription.
This book is dedicated to my hero, my friend, and my professor, Josef Held, who taught me algebra but also taught me in the darkest nights of my soul the true meaning of the words, “Sometimes the most courageous love is whispered in the quietest moments.”
Overcome, Josef handed the book to Hannah, who read aloud the first poem in the book, also called “Miji Held,” which told a story of protection, quiet strength, and courage.
After she was finished, tears brimming in her eyes, she closed the cover of the book. There was a long silence between them. And then, reading the atmosphere, she decided maybe he needed to be left alone with his thoughts. He was only vaguely aware of her calling out from the door, “It was lovely to see you again, Professor,” as she moved out into the corridor.
Josef continued to sit for a long moment, absorbing everything that had happened. Michael was safe. Michael was safe.
Suddenly he was stirred from his reverie, Hannah’s words suddenly finding their way into his consciousness. She had left and he might never get a chance again. Remembering something Michael had once suggested to him long ago, he raced to the door. The hall was now filled with people, young students and faculty, and on seeing him, they automatically came to the classroom door to congratulate him on his performance. Trapped in the classroom, he looked about frantically and finally saw her moving toward the main exit.
Josef took a deep breath and tried to speak. But no sound came out.
He tried again. This time his voice boomed down the hall. “Mrs. Pender!”
She didn’t hear him.
So he called again even louder, “Hannah!”
Apparently taken aback by his use of her first name, she turned to see who called to her. When she saw it was Josef, she started to walk back.
He didn’t even wait until she reached him. Josef wasn’t going to let her slip from his life again. He continued to shout over the crowd, “Hannah, I was wondering… no, I was hoping that you might wish to join me for dinner, this evening… and then maybe… for the rest of my life.”
Hannah stopped, surprised by his words, but also emotional, tears brimming. “I would love to,” she mouthed back, walking slowly toward him.
And he felt—for the first time in so long—warm and light. Her smile was a gentle glow warming and reminding him of the sun on the rooftops after the rain. As he looked down at her he saw reflected in her eyes his whole life stretched out before him and he felt complete. It had been a long and harrowing journey back to his heart and to loving again and now it was here he would not let it go. He enfolded her gently in his arms, drew her in close so he could feel her heart beating, her breath grazing his cheek. Closing his eyes so he could fully experience the feeling of the woman he loved in his arms, he drew in a long, slow, contented breath knowing, finally, he was home.
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A Letter from Suzanne
Dear Reader,
I want to say a huge thank you for choosing to read A View Across the Rooftops. If you did enjoy it, and want to keep up-to-date with all my latest releases, just sign up at the following link. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.
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This story is incredibly close to my heart, and is inspired by a true story of a man who risked everything to save another, and by the courageous acts of the Dutch people. You can read on for a little more about the story behind the story.
In the meantime, if you loved A View Across the Rooftops, I would be enormously grateful if you could write a review. I’d love to hear what you think, and it makes such a difference helping new readers to discover one of my books for the first time.
I love hearing from my readers—you can get in touch on my Facebook page, through Twitter, Goodreads or my website.
Thanks,
Suzanne Kelman
www.suzannekelmanauthor.com
The Story Behind A View Across the Rooftops
Sometimes a story takes hold of you and it just won’t let go until you’ve written it. A View Across the Rooftops was exactly like that for me. Back in 2010 I was talking to another writer, my friend Susannah, discussing writing and stories we had been profoundly touched by. As we sat sipping pink wine, she told me about a true story that had moved her ten years before, that she had never written and that still truly touched her.
She’d been researching Holocaust stories for a theatre show she was directing and by chance unearthed a story—a plaque on the wall of a museum, telling the story of a man who’d deliberately contracted a deadly disease just to get medicine for the Jewish person he was hiding. It had such an impact on her, this one courageous act that one person had done for another, that she wrote it down on a napkin and carried it around in her handbag for months until it got lost, though she never forgot the story. I sat on the edge of my seat as she went on to describe this one quiet heroic act.
When she left that evening I found I couldn’t sleep and, as I paced my kitchen, what kept me awake wasn’t just this one man’s selfless act, but the fact I recognized I wasn’t capable of it. A much deeper question then haunted me: Just how far would I be willing to go to save another person’s life?
The very next morning I called Susannah and that started a journey that has lasted ten years for me. Not because it has taken that long to tell but because it turns out this story had its own idea of how it wanted to be told.
Originally, in 2010, we decided to write the screenplay together, and there were significant challenges, but also uplifting moments. As we started to read about Amsterdam, it was hard not to become overwhelmed at the volume of unsung hero stories, particularly from ordinary Dutch people. Overthrown in just five days, Holland was one of the countries most viciously policed by the Nazis. But their people were also one of the most vocal about the unethical treatment of the Jewish population. Even so, the Netherlands lost some of the highest numbers of Jewish citizens; there were 140,000 Jewish people living in Holland before the war and devastatingly fewer than 25 per cent survived, with only approximately 5,000 returning home from the death and labor camps.
What was amazing, however, was that a staggering further 30,000 Jews survived the war by hiding in people’s basements, attics, and barns. We probably all know the story of Anne Frank and her family, but whilst like so many her story ended in tragedy, a huge number of lives were saved. And if it hadn’t been for the quiet courage of ordinary Dutch citizens who continued to keep their former neighbors safe even in the face of starvation during the brutal Hongerwinter where many were forced to eat tulip bulbs and wallpaper just to survive, nearly a whole nation of Dutch Jews would have been lost.
Something astonishing happened as we wrote. A script in the first draft typically takes me three to four months to complete. But the story that was then called Held—the Dutch word for hero, and of course our fictional hero Josef’s surname—wrote itself in only one week. It was as if this story needed to be told.
The original screenplay did really well. It won many awards and was even placed in the top ten of the Academy of Motion Pictures Nichols Fellowship, winning its place over 8,000 other scripts. But still, even though we tried many avenues for a number of years, and it went into pre-production twice, it is yet to be made as a movie.
Both Susannah and I went on to work separately on other projects but this story never entire
ly left me. Flash forward a few years, and I was telling the story to my literary agent, and it also touched her in a profound way, and she asked me to write it again, this time as a novel.
So over the last two years that grain of a story became A View Across the Rooftops and has grown into something so much bigger than I could have imagined. Still though, at the center of this story, is that single act of heroism that touches my heart to this day.
The wonderful thing that emerged as I wrote this book, was that with over 100,000 words I had so much more latitude to explore everyday people and their simple acts of bravery—from Hannah and her work for the Resistance, to Vi (or Cuckoo) bravely concealing herself in Nazi High Command, even to Clara and Oma whose quiet resistance and parenting taught those around them the difference between right and wrong. And their voices came forth in the work, too. I have also realized that before I started telling this story, I had some sort of blind idea that heroes existed only on the battlefield charging to their death, when the truth is so many people show quiet heroism we will never know about. This is one of those stories, and I’m just grateful that I could be the one to give it a voice.
Nations of heroes do not exist. But there were among the Dutch tens of thousands of ordinary beings, men and women, who did save the country’s soul. —Louis de Jong
Acknowledgements
I couldn’t have written this book without the myriad of people who helped me along the way. Firstly, I have to thank Susannah Rose Woods, thank you for bringing this amazing story into my life and also for being gracious enough to trust me to tell it one more time.
Secondly, I have to thank my partner, my love, my husband, Matthew Wilson, who as I am writing this, is sat right next to me re-checking links and historical facts one more time. He has been my rock and constant supporter. Thank you so much, honey. Not only for being my historian but also for being a soft place to fall and answering the question over and over again when I was bone-tired, “Why am I doing this again?”
I would also like to thank my son Christopher, whose editing and linguistic skills are throughout this book, and for his gift of humor that keeps me going every day. I’m indeed fortunate to not only have you as my son but also as my friend.
Thanks also goes to my team: my agent, Andrea Hurst, and editors, Jeri Walker, Audrey Makaman and Cameron Chandler, you all helped add something special to this story.
With my publishers, Bookouture, I was indeed fortunate to have found a champion of this work in Isobel Akenhead, who not only got the heart of this story right away, but her skilled development made my writing shine. I’m also grateful to the rest of the editorial team at Bookouture, as well as Oliver Rhodes, Peta Nightingale, Noelle Holten, Kim Nash, and all the other supporters at Bookouture and Hachette UK. Lots of thanks also go to Abby Parsons, the editor over at Little, Brown Books, for also loving this story and publishing the paperback.
To my own circle of cozies, Melinda Mack, Kim Wetherell, Eric Mulholland, and Shauna Soule, thank you for keeping me sane through this process. To my favorite writer pal, K.J. Waters, who is always my number-one writing cheerleader. I couldn’t do this without your support, thank you so much.
Also, I need to recognize Phillip Thoman who always believed in the power of this story.
And lastly, thanks to you, the reader. I hope that you’ll be as touched by the heart of this story as I was, and it will help you forever recognize the quiet hero who resides in all of us.
Research
The Holocaust Centre for Humanity in Seattle
abmceducation.org/sites/default/files/Swenson_Timeline_MajorWWII_Events_handout.pdf
historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/timeline.html
faculty.webster.edu/woolflm/netherlands.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_strike
seehiddenamsterdam.com/tag/nazi-occupation/
verzetsmuseum.org/museum/en/exhibitions/the-netherlands-in-ww2
ww2gravestone.com/1941-2526-february-strike-also-known-strike-february-1941
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Amsterdam
ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005434
ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1942-1945/deportation-of-dutch-jews
annefrank.org/en/Subsites/Annes-Amsterdam/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannie_Schaft
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_resistance
ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005436
jta.org/2017/07/03/news-opinion/world/in-holland-the-nazis-built-a-luxury-camp-to-lull-the-jews-before-murdering-them
iamsterdam.com/en/about-amsterdam/amsterdam-neighbourhoods
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_in_World_War_II#Life_in_the_occupied_Netherlands
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_famine_of_1944–45
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Silbertanne
wikiwand.com/en/Amsterdam-Centrum
wikiwand.com/en/Jodenbuurt
ilholocaustmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Netherlands-Holocaust-History.pdf
dirkdeklein.net/tag/holocaust/
utm.utoronto.ca/~dwhite/101/28.htm
netinnederland.nl/en/artikelen/dossiers/overzicht/tweede-wereldoorlog.html
rafmuseum.org.uk/blog/operation-manna-29th-april-to-8th-may-1945/
Published by Bookouture in 2019
An imprint of StoryFire Ltd.
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
www.bookouture.com
Copyright © Suzanne Kelman, 2019
Suzanne Kelman has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work.
Story based on the original screenplay Held by Susannah Rose Woods and Suzanne Kelman.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
eBook ISBN: 978-1-83888-033-0
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A View Across the Rooftops: An epic, heart-wrenching and gripping World War Two historical novel Page 36
