by Irene Butter
5
Berlin, Germany
December 1937
“Werner, Reni, sit down,” Mutti said a few days later after dinner, her voice as hard and cracked as a frozen puddle. “We need to tell you something.”
We entered the living room. There, in the middle of the room, on the large rug (it’s always been too dark for us—it will stay) lit by one standing lamp, were Opa and Omi. Opa’s comfy chair, with his back pillow and covered armrests, sat empty (too old and worn to take). He had left his chair to sit by Omi; both of them pressed together on one end of the small green sofa (goes so nice with the painting in the hallway, of course we’ll take it). Werner and I sat next to each other on the other end of the sofa. Mutti balanced on the edge of the rocking chair, facing us. Everyone was quiet, waiting.
“Opa and Omi and I wanted to tell you both how much we love you,” Mutti said. “We are almost packed and ready to go to Amsterdam to join Pappi.” She paused, slid back, and started rocking.
I looked at Werner.
“But there’s been a change in plans,” Mutti added. She rocked faster and put her face in her hands.
Werner put his thumb to his teeth, sliding the nail between his front teeth and pulling it out for a look. I slid my hands under my knees to keep still. I grabbed and ungrabbed my legs like I was a cat trying to get comfy.
“As much as Omi and I would like to join you,” Opa said, picking up where Mutti left off, “we won’t be coming. We didn’t get the permits—the right papers—we need. We’ll stay here and watch after things. Until you can come home again.”
“But why?” asked Werner. “I thought we all had permission.”
“Only for the three of us,” Mutti said.
“But why?” he asked again. And his question hung there with no one answering it.
6
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
April 1940
What I didn’t know as a child was that I was one drop in a flood of Jews leaving Germany. Jews went to Albania, the United States, the Philippines, England, Belgium, China—anywhere they would take us. The United States didn’t let many of us in, so we couldn’t go there, even though it was Pappi’s first choice. Instead, the work Pappi found in the Netherlands meant that at least it was a relatively easy move: “Due west, 650 kilometers,” Werner stated. The Nazis only allowed a certain amount of property and money out of Germany, which was the real reason why we had to cut way back.
Imagine having to leave behind all you had earned and saved… for people who hated you. We left our spacious Berlin apartment for a small, two-bedroom one in Amsterdam. A moving truck came, and men loaded all our things at once. My Mutti did a wonderful job of paring down all we owned. Opa and Omi took some furniture, bedding, dishes, and flatware and moved into a nearby apartment. They insisted they only needed a little.
Amsterdam indeed felt like home, with our white dishes with the blue flowered edging, the embroidered linens with Mutti’s initials “GMH,” some pieces of our heavy living room bookcases, and our large dining room hutch. We hung the oil painting of the meadow with the trembling gold hay and a glazed blue heaven in the front hallway. Just as before, Mozart and Verdi played on the Victrola, our wind-up record player, and filled the apartment with the music we loved.
From 1937 to 1940, life was peaceful and harmonious. We learned to speak Dutch, a language I learned easily and grew to love. Family and friends passed through, some while fleeing from Germany. Opa and Omi were not allowed to move, but they could visit. Mutti’s sister and her husband had also moved to Amsterdam, so we felt some embrace of family. Those were joyful days with trips through the country, and bike rides along canals, outlined by the ordered beauty of tulip rows. I found new friends, like Vera and Kitty, who loved biking as much as I did. And our neighborhood had other German emigrants, including a family named Frank. The shadow of Germany was a distant cloud in the vast Dutch sky. But just as a calm and wispy sky can suddenly grow into thunderheads, so did the billowing threat of the Nazis.
My beloved grandparents came for a two-week visit in 1938. My eight-year-old self felt the spike of a more permanent good-bye in their hugs, but I could not have known it was the last time I would ever see them. Hitler was on the move, felling Poland the next year, birthing the Second World War. And then, in the spring and summer of 1940, when I was nine years old, Hitler’s armies invaded a string of Western European countries.
One morning, I tightly tucked the sheets and blanket under my mattress so Mutti could fold up my bed into the wall to “save space”—it was a Dutch way of doing things. I brushed my heavy dark hair and ran to say good-bye to my father before he took the tram to work. He usually heard me coming and put some food on his face or pretended to hide, but this morning he just sat there, holding hands with Mutti at the table. I skidded into his arms as he released Mutti’s hand to catch me, but he didn’t smile like he usually did during our familiar morning ritual. His face was flat and far away.
“Shhh,” Mutti warned.
“Shhhh, Reni, it’s not the time,” Werner said, acting all grown-up.
Pappi just held me close, my fingers settled on his suit coat arm. I pinched at a small thread end, trying to get it between my fingers. I gave up. No one was eating. The toast and jam sat cooling in the middle of the table. I saw the heat leaking away; I preferred warm toast. That’s when I heard the radio’s voice coming from the large wooden box in the corner. I grabbed two pieces of toast, smeared them with jam, and tried to listen like an adult. I pretended to look thoughtful, cocking my head like Pappi, listening to the very boring voice on the radio. Then I heard the word “Nazi” and froze. It was followed by a voice in German, not Dutch. I was used to German spoken in warm tones at home, but this voice was cold and official-sounding, cutting into our room like a knife.
“What’s going on?” I asked. My toast clattered back onto the plate.
“Shhh….” came the answer.
For the next five minutes, we just sat there, and I struggled to understand what had happened. I stayed in Pappi’s lap, somehow wanting to be smaller, to be tucked safely into his pocket. Finally, Pappi flicked the radio off and explained.
It looked as if Germany might invade Holland and kill people unless Holland allowed Germany to own the country. If that happened, we might not be safe. Just like before. Living in Berlin seemed like a long time ago to me. Holland felt like home now. I wished Germany would just stay away and let us be.
“How soon will they come?” “What will they do?” “What will they look like?” “Do they look like regular people?” My questions tumbled out like dead leaves in a strong wind.
Werner interrupted me. “Reni, stop! Nothing is happening now. Everything is staying the same. That’s what it means.” He stood up from the table and put his dishes next to the sink.
Pappi spoke. “We don’t know yet what it means. I’m hopeful that Britain and France will fight off the Nazis, and we won’t be occupied. But for now, we watch and listen to see what will change.”
He got up from the table, hugged us all good-bye, and, from our second story window, I watched him and his hat walk down the sunny sidewalk to the tram. Then I headed off to school, waved good-bye to Mutti with her worried face, and met my best friend, Vera, on the sidewalk outside. We were both in third grade. School was three blocks away. We walked arm in arm for a little bit, skipping over cracks in the sidewalk, our straight brown bobs bouncing. Then she pulled away and reached into her pocket.
“Look what I made for my doll last night,” she said. I took the small, perfect miniature dress from her and looked it over. It was bright white like a dove. The blue stitching was even across the bottom skirt with no dangling threads, and both shoulder straps were the same length.
“Oh, it’s perfect. I’ll make an overcoat to go with it so she can wear it in two seasons,” I said.
I handed the small dress back to Vera, and I looked up the sidewalk at the other people. A woman in high
heels rushed toward us, her gaze pinned to where she was going. Two men in suits stood on the sidewalk, laughing and talking over their still-folded newspapers. No one had answered any of my questions this morning. Would I recognize a Nazi when I saw one?
“Come on, slowpoke,” Vera said. “We’ll be late and miss Principal Beuzemaker’s ‘March of the Students.’”
We walked up the seven steps into our dark-brick school and joined the remaining students in the hallway.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Principal Beuzemaker stood just inside the hallway. He was bald and forever clad in a light brown suit with a bowtie that struggled against his wide neck. Palm up, fist clenched, he knocked his wedding ring against the stair banister in an even beat that quickened the students’ pace into their classrooms.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Vera and I hung our coats on hooks by the door and sat down at our desks, which were next to each other. We each had a box on our desk that held our ink and pens and a small pile of Shirley Temple cards. These were free in packs of gum that I never chewed. But I loved the cards, as they gave me lots of ideas for doll dresses and hairdos. I thumbed through them now and put the one with Shirley Temple in a green collar and feathered black hat on top. Vera put her favorite card on top, too—the one with the actress’s hands in prayer, while she looks sideways at the camera.
Miss Pino, with a tight gray bun and kind face, began to write on the board with clean, looping strokes. I loved learning to write, and I loved Miss Pino. She even invited Vera and me to her house once, and we had tea together.
Part of my love for Miss Pino was also my love for Rudi. She had brought us together: Rudi’s desk was on the other side of me. He was absent that day, but when he was here, it was hard to concentrate. He was always one of the first ones to ask questions in class and was always very confident of his answers, but not in a way that was bad. He had wavy hair, like Werner’s, but thicker, and he didn’t make fun of my Shirley Temple cards like the other boys did. In fact, once he had even picked up my cards when the pile of them had fallen to the floor. A gentleman.
The Start of War
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
1940-1943
7
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
May 1940
Ka-boom. My bed shuddered in the dark. Boom. Boom. More explosions. BOOM. A sharp wind blew into the room as glass like hail showered my bed.
“Werner!” I shouted over the noise. “Werner!”
“I’m here! Are you okay?” he said.
“I don’t know,” I yelled and drew back from the window and billowing curtains. Flames silhouetted buildings and smoke. Werner and I hunkered down behind the end of my bed; Werner put his arms around me.
Pappi and Mutti stormed in.
“Reni! Werner! Where are you?” Mutti yelled. Her breath swooped in and out.
“Here, under the bed,” Werner cried.
“Come here, let’s go into the kitchen,” Pappi said. He held a flashlight in one hand, and guided Mutti with the other.
The horrible noises continued outside as we sat huddled around the kitchen table, which was near the back of the apartment. Beyond the terrifying blasts was the dull drone of planes. Mutti began to cry. And that made me cry. She put me in her lap.
“It’s the Germans, Trudi,” Pappi said. “It’s the invasion; just like they’ve been predicting.”
“The Nazis?” I asked.
“Yes,” Pappi said.
The wisps of talk about invasion had felt too unreal to understand. What did I know of war? The meaning slipped through my fingers no matter how serious it sounded, but not the bombs. This was war I could feel in my bones.
Every once in awhile we peeked out the windows. Lights caught billowing clouds as they drifted down from the dark, looking like pulsating jellyfish from the deep-sea waters.
“Parachutes,” Werner whispered, as if they might hear us.
German and Dutch planes fought overhead, and Pappi said we could be hurt by either of them. War was messy, and in their fighting with each other, we might get killed if we got noticed. And so it was our job to lie low, keep quiet, and stay together.
Despite the bravery, Holland fell to Germany. Over the coming weeks, we put heavy black curtains in our windows so we’d be less likely to be seen at night by anyone in the sky.
You might think that everything changed in that instant, like going from color to black and white, but the changes were slow to show. The day-to-day became familiar. One morning, when I was on my way to school, I saw my first group of Nazi soldiers. They wore helmets that had the black zigzag and looked like turtle shells, tall black boots, and grayish green uniforms; they smoked and talked together, and when they moved they marched their legs up with purpose as if they were showing off. The first time Vera and I passed them, we quieted down. They didn’t even look our way. They didn’t ever seem to notice us as we walked to school, and we soon forgot to be quiet.
They didn’t seem to notice when Werner went to his junior high school, either. Or when Pappi went to work. Or when Mutti went shopping or kept the apartment clean and prepared wonderful foods for us.
But they were always there.
8
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
December 1939–September 1941
My friends and I went ice-skating on a pond at Vondelpark, the biggest park in Amsterdam. Vera was there, and so was Kitty. Kitty was one of the older girls in the neighborhood like the Franks’ daughter, Anne. I looked up to Kitty, glad that she was willing to play with a nine-year-old. The long, twisting pond was filled with other skaters and even some dogs that loped and slid around like comic book characters. We flew like birds along the chestnut tree-lined shore, and then returned home to my house to peel off our soggy layers and put them in a pile near the front door.
Soon their parents joined us for my birthday dinner. Vera started giggling, which meant she knew about some of my gifts ahead of time. The colorful presents—packages wrapped in pink, purple, and blue shiny wrapping and tied tightly with ribbons—sat in a corner of our small living room. Adults sipped their beer in the doorway, as there was not enough room to fit everyone on the two chairs and small sofa. Mutti had told me to unwrap slowly so we could reuse the paper, and so I didn’t look too greedy. This was hard. I thanked each friend or family member before moving on to the next gift, though Mutti’s eyes hinted that I was not being as gracious as she wanted. As I tore off a corner from a package that was obviously a book, Vera leaned so far forward in her chair she almost fell over. That’s when I realized it wasn’t a book, but a Poesie book.
There were two types of girls in Amsterdam: those who had a Poesie book and those who wanted one. I ran my hands over the rough black leather cover with “POESIE” stamped in gold in the lower right corner.
“Now you have one too,” Vera said. She had gotten hers last year.
I opened the book with relish, listening to the binding crack and yield. A blank page stared up at me, a waiting space for me to mark as my own and welcoming the treasures that people would script inside. I couldn’t wait to fill it up.
“Oh, thanks, Mutti and Pappi. Thanks. Will you write in it?”
“Yes,” said Mutti.
“I promise to write something later,” Pappi added. “This is very important. What I write may be around longer than me!”
“But I want it now. Please?”
“Reni,” Mutti said, “the point isn’t to fill it up right away. People write in it when they are ready.”
“That’s right.” Pappi said with a nod, “Don’t you want people to write something thoughtful, and not just because you are impatient?”
I knew what I wanted to say, but I said “yes” instead.
We all sat around the table—my family, and Vera and Kitty with their parents—and ate our fill of pot roast and scalloped potatoes. Then came my favorite, a thick lemon pudding, covered with sugar powdered like newly flurried snow. When we
were almost finished with the pudding, Mutti opened a drawer and brought out a white box with blue scrolls on it that read: “Droste.” I opened the box and unwrapped the foil to reveal the smooth, silken chocolate. I was allowed to take as big a chunk of chocolate as I wanted, so I cracked off a huge piece and passed it to Werner and the others who did the same. It was delicious. After dinner, I asked for my father’s special pen, sat down on the floor, opened my new Poesie book, and wrote in Dutch, in my best writing:
This album belongs to me as long as I hope to live.
Irene is my name given to me by my parents.
Hasenberg also belongs to it from my father’s ancestors.
I was about to write that I was from Amsterdam, but I wanted to honor my family, so I went back to my birth and finished with:
Germany is the country where I came into the world.
Later that night, Pappi snuggled me into my bed.
“Did you have a good birthday, Reni?”
“Yes, so good,” I said. “I wish I could have them more often!”
He hugged me and swept closed the heavy curtains in around the windows, wrapping me in my cocoon.
“Well, if they happened more often maybe they wouldn’t be as special,” he said.
“Don’t tuck me in too tight,” I said. “I still have to read the wishes in my Poesie book.”
“Okay,” he said. “But don’t stay up too late. It’s been a long day. Werner will be in soon.”
“Is he helping with dishes because I don’t have to since it’s my birthday?”
“You know the answer to that. Good night, “ he said, and kissed the top of my head.
Reading my Poesie book wouldn’t take long: I had one entry, from Mutti:
Start your day with a happy face and then everything
will work out.
Do what you have to do, and want to do what you do.
