by Irene Butter
I made a face at Werner while trying to tame my hair with spit.
“Where is everyone going?” I asked.
“To a work camp called Westerbork,” Pappi said.
Mutti gave him a look that said be quiet.
“Come on Mutti,” Werner said. “It’s not like Reni and I don’t know what’s going on. Well, at least I know what’s going on.”
“What we know,” Pappi continued, his voice sharp, “is that people leave here on trains that take them to a Dutch work camp, just north of here by a few hours.”
Mutti glared at him. He didn’t say anything more.
We finally used the bathroom, which was disgusting. Werner said the theater bathrooms were not designed for so many people.
Back on the floor, we sat together in our sleeping spot and ate porridge out of the same dirty dishes we had had the soup in the night before. Also disgusting.
Soon a pale, nervous Dutch policeman came over and spoke with Pappi. They both glanced at me.
“Reni, dear. This nice policeman says that there are children across the street in a daycare that has been set up to take care of the young children, and that they need helpers like you. Are you willing to go?”
I tried to read his face. Was this real? I loved playing with children, at least somewhat well-behaved children, but I didn’t want to leave my family. He nodded. Mutti nodded as well.
I stood up and followed the nice policeman along with several other girls my age. I looked back; Pappi waved. You’ll be fine, his wave said. Outside we went into that same cold sun. Oh, but it felt good.
We walked into a small building across the street that looked like it might have been a library. I spent the day playing with children of all ages. There were about ten of us older girls, a handful of nurses in white smocks and caps, and probably seventy kids. It was certainly more fun than staying in the stinky theater. Even with the changing of diapers, it was a lot less smelly, and even in hard times, I realized, little kids can find a way to play. There weren’t any toys, but we made up games and sang songs we learned in school. We all knew “Two Buckets of Water.”
To fetch two buckets of water
To pump two buckets of water
The girls in wooden shoes
The boys on their wooden leg
Just ride through my gate.
I loved silly rhymes that meant nothing. I sang and sang and we held hands and danced around in a circle until we collapsed. As the day went on, the babies fussed and cried because they were used to eating whenever they wanted and now they were separated from their moms. Twice that day the moms were allowed to come over from the Schouwburg to feed them, escorted by two Nazi guards. One Nazi guard, a little fat man whose helmet looked like it had been squeezed over his head, told the moms to return to the theater after just a few minutes with their kids. Feeding time was over. One mom didn’t want to leave her little boy. He was so tiny and couldn’t even lift his head. And he was a little yellow, with a high-pitched cry.
“Please,” she said as she covered him with her arms like a cocoon. “He needs me. Can’t you see how he needs to stay with me? He is a newborn.”
The three or so of us closest to the mom sat stone still, stunned to watch her defy the Nazis. Let her stay, I thought, please.
The Nazi guard grabbed her now-screaming baby out of her hands. Then the other guard pushed her out the door, and the first guard handed her baby to an older girl next to me and both guards went outside. The girl folded the tiny crying baby into her chest.
The daycare was silent but for the baby screeching for his mother. I was chilled into stillness. Nazis must not get married and have babies, I thought. If they did, there’s no way they could do this.
At the end of the day, the moms came back to feed their children, and the little yellow baby got to be with his mom again. Then a different Dutch policeman took us helpers back to the theater.
“Did all the moms and dads go to work or something today?” I asked Werner, whom I saw first.
“No, we all just sat around wondering if we would be in the next group to be sent away.”
“Why did they have us be with the little kids then?” I asked.
“Ummm, maybe because little kids are like you—noisy and gross?”
“At least it doesn’t smell like here.”
“Really? A hundred babies, all clean?”
“Yes,” I said, “and everyone smells better than you!”
We joined Pappi and Mutti in our small space, said hello to some neighbors, and sipped soup in our disgusting porridge bowls. Then I lay down and looked around at them. Half-lidded, not asleep, but not fully awake either. I knew this state now. The state of existing in-between; it was an almost-dream where what was real could still seem far away, but not so far that one couldn’t snap back if needed, if something went wrong. It was exhausted alertness. I closed my eyes.
In the morning, groups of people left and again, new ones came in. And we waited, unmoving. The same nervous Dutch policeman from yesterday came over and spoke to Pappi. Pappi’s eyes widened and he nodded and smiled, and said something to the officer who quickly scribbled something on a piece of paper.
“Quickly, gather all your things now,” he said. “Let’s go, Hasenbergs.”
His tone told us not to talk or question. We gathered up our knapsacks and bags. We followed the policeman as he scurried through the crowds, but in the opposite direction from where most were heading. Pappi showed his identification to another policeman at the entrance of the theater space, and he let us through. Into the street. Into freedom. Life swarmed all around us, and we walked as fast as we could around the block and away.
“Oh John,” Mutti exclaimed, panting from the pace, “are we free?”
“Yes,” he said and stopped to hug her. He looked at Werner and me and hugged us, too.
“It’s a miracle,” Mutti said with a smile.
“Yes,” Pappi confirmed.
“But,” she continued, “it will be a little bit of a walk home with all of our things. We stand out.”
“Especially walking three kilometers home with our earthly belongings!” Werner said.
Three kilometers, I thought. It seemed farther than that.
“I was able to send word before we left with the officer,” Pappi said, “A neighbor will be here to pick us up.”
“Oh John, you think of everything.”
“I think it is more worrying than thinking.”
We waited forever before a car came to pick us up. We all piled inside.
At our apartment on Schelde Straat No. 40, we found a notice tacked to the front door saying that our place was vacant. No one lived here anymore. But we did! Pappi unlocked the door with a spare key he kept in his wallet and threw it open. All of the rest of our belongings were there—even the dirty dishes were in the sink, as if we had never left. I ran to my room and checked my special things: my Poesie book, my other dolls, my cards. Werner confirmed that his maps and his books were still there.
Our neighbors and friends were shocked and happy. No one had ever gone to the Hollandsche Schouwburg and returned. Why we had been released really was a mystery. All week long they filled our apartment with flowers— tulips, daffodils, reds and yellows and pinks. I breathed in the rich perfume, and felt the promise of it all.
12
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Spring 1943
Vera, Werner, Rudi, and I walked the canals through the mists of spring’s coming. On one of our walks, on a rainy Saturday afternoon, Vera told me about a new boy she liked as we strode ahead of Rudi and Werner along the dappled waterway. She didn’t have many classes with him, but maybe next year. As I listened to her whispered and exciting news, I looked at the pedestrians. Coats with yellow stars were fewer, and the German soldiers and Dutch police more numerous and always in packs. Germany was draining Amsterdam of Jews. I didn’t feel invisible anymore, in fact, I felt sure that my yellow star glowed like a bright
beacon in the gray drizzle. Something had changed between Vera and me: unlike me, she didn’t live under the threat of disappearing. She could think about next year; I was stuck worrying about today and the next day.
Back at school, Rudi and I sat together as always. I brought my Poesie book in for what classmates remained to sign. Rudi added a few more stickers. Where he got them from, I didn’t know. I reread what people wrote, including what Mr. Pinto had written in my first few months at school, especially the part I’d remembered when Werner and I were on the food truck:
To write a verse in this book, I do this with pleasure. Let us always remain good friends, even if you live far away from here, and even if sometimes there is a rain shower and everything looks black and gray, be courageous, be a blessing, because things will soon change again. Go through your life upright and honest, dear child, this is what your teacher says to you.
It was as if he knew what was coming, that life would get harder for all of us. His clothes hung off him now. And he paced back and forth while he taught, as if he was afraid to sit down.
There was also a new quote in my Poesie book, and it looked like Rudi’s handwriting, though I couldn’t be sure:
As devils pray and angels curse, when cats and mice look
for each other,
when water changes into wine, then shall I forget you.
He looked down when I read through it, but I thought I sensed a smile.
Back at home, Greetje’s mom brought back small bags of food from the store almost every day because the shelves were still bare after 3:00 p.m. when Mutti could start her shopping. Many apartments on our street darkened, their doors tagged with official notices. Mutti and Pappi said it was time to give away more of our things: it was better to choose who our beloved things went to than let the Nazis just take them.
The Bremekamps hid most of our stuff. A photographer named Ri Ritsema, who lived with them, said she could store things like photographs, and it wouldn’t seem suspicious. The photographs on the walls came down, leaving their shadows where the sun had cast them over the years. The haystack painting came down, and Mutti’s neck and ears went bare with no jewelry at all. I looked at the emptied wall and imagined the photos back in place: my grandparents, my parents on a stroll, Werner and me skating, Werner and me at the beach.
What couldn’t I live without? My dolls? Even Liesje, my favorite, didn’t call me to play with her like she used to. When little Gerda came over with her sister Greetje to drop off the food, she ran right into my room to see them, lined up on my shelf in their hats and dresses. I let her pick whatever she wanted. To my surprise, she chose Liesje’s wooden bed, so her own favorite doll could have a bed. Poor Liesje, I thought, but I understood. And Gerda was all smiles.
My pink blanket: Mutti said I should keep that.
And then came the late spring morning in 1943, when I showed up in our hollow little classroom, and Rudi wasn’t there. He had always arrived before me. I stared at the door to the classroom and willed him to come in. I watched the door all morning. His empty wooden chair stayed naked and alone. By noon he still hadn’t shown up. Mr. Pinto came over and patted my back. My tears overflowed, and I asked to go home. He nodded. I ran all the way home, losing my only pencil on the way. I went straight to my room and slammed the door.
“What are you doing home? Are you okay?” Mutti asked, coming in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel.
“I don’t want to talk,” I said.
She came in anyway.
“What happened?” she asked.
I turned my head toward the wall and started to cry into my blanket.
“Sweetheart,” she said and put her hand on my back, like Mr. Pinto had done.
“He’s gone,” I said. “They took him.”
“Rudi?”
I nodded into the pink softness.
“Oh, I am so sorry,” she said. And we sat there. I didn’t look up, but I thought she might be crying, too.
“We knew this day would…might come,” she said.
“Yeah, but it’s different knowing it might come and then having it actually happen,” I said. “I didn’t even get to say good-bye.”
“He knows you care. You showed him that every day. You’re a good friend. He knows.”
I thought back to the day before. He’d been wearing his brown coat, the yellow star a little ripped off one corner so it flapped down. I remember hoping he wouldn’t get in trouble for that. He’d waved as he left with a couple of other boys. We had talked about the weekend coming up, and what we would do if it rained. Hide under the bridges? Duck under the eaves of a store? Construct our own umbrella?
And, now, we wouldn’t do any of that.
Rudi’s leaving stripped away the color from the tulips and dampened the sunshine trying to warm us after the rains. In the weeks that followed, Werner tried to make me feel better by inviting me to plan Henki Express trips with him. I could choose anywhere I wanted to go. My favorite trip to work on was to Ecuador, the country where our passports were coming from.
Almost every night, my parents talked about the passports. A man Pappi knew was getting them from another man who was Swedish. It seemed a little confusing, but they talked as if the passports were gold. I learned that Ecuador was a small South American country covered with clouds and rain forest. It was ripe with promise because it was anywhere but here.
In May I came home from school and Mutti met me at the door with a big smile on her face. She pointed to the kitchen table. Werner was home too, and he smiled as well. An impish smile. Like he was going to tease me. What was going on? There on the table was a postcard. It was plain tan. One side had two stamps: one green and the other red, with my name and address under them. Rudi’s handwriting. Rudi! I flipped it over.
He and his family were at Camp Westerbork. They had theater shows at night…some were pretty good…the food was bad…everyone slept in big rooms…life was pretty boring…it would be a lot more fun if I was there….
I re-read it again. And again.
Mutti and Werner hung around, fiddling with things they didn’t need to fiddle with.
“Mutti,” I asked, “if we get sent away, will we go to Westerbork?”
“Yes,” she said. “It seems that’s where everyone goes.” She paused in her cooking, four small potatoes, peeled and waiting on the counter.
Westerbork and Rudi. I was ready to go.
We heard the Germans would round up Jews tomorrow, then two days after that—no, next week. Rumors changed course like skittish pigeons. We heard that roundups, when they happened, were fast, so we kept knapsacks ready to go. Mutti worried that the passports would arrive too late. What if we were taken away and we didn’t have them? At least we knew what to pack—a change of clothes, things to eat with and eat on, a blanket. Postcards from friends at Westerbork told us what to bring, and the police distributed lists as well. Details were sparse, but we knew one thing: it was not a matter of if they came to get us, but when. After all, every other part of Amsterdam had been “de-juda-ized,” Werner said.
“Dejew…dejed…that’s not a word,” I said as I pulled everything out of my knapsack again. I always seemed to need something I had just packed, like my comb or a clean shirt.
“It is,” he said standing over me. “It might not be in the dictionary, but the Nazis use it.”
“Who cares about the Nazis?” I blurted.
“Other people say ‘dejudaized,’ too. Just because you can’t say it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.”
“Mutti,” I yelled, “Werner is making up words!”
I put aside the shirt I needed and restuffed the rest. I would refold it neatly later.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Mutti called back. “Not that word, and not you two arguing.”
13
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
June 20, 1943
The morning air was hot, humid, and heavy. The remains of the night rain trickled down the pan
es and polished the leaves of the trees outside, which drooped in the breezeless air. The showers had done little to break the humidity. Even with our windows cracked open and the bulky blackout curtains pulled aside, we were already sweating. Wispy white curtains, the few we had left up since the threat of air raids had begun, hung limp. Each of us—Pappi, Mutti, Werner, and me—stirred, getting ready for the day, when I heard charged voices echoing off the cobblestones and brick buildings outdoors. With a brush of the back of my hand, I parted the light curtains of the corner window. Far off, a few cars and meandering bicycles passed through an intersection. It was so quiet and normal, except for a line of Dutch police in dark uniforms spread out across and moving up the wide road like an incoming tide.
From behind, Pappi’s voice startled me.
“Reni. Away from the window. It’s time to go.”
“But we got out of the theater, can’t you get us out of this?”
“No, this is a much bigger roundup, Reni. I’m sorry.”
He smelled of soap and tea. His hair was combed back, ready for the day. His face was tight and drips of sweat glistened by his ears. I looked at him in the day’s new light, but I was suddenly thinking of Rudi, and how the “time to go” would mean that I would see him. My breath quickened.
In my room I rummaged through my knapsack to make sure I had what I wanted. I pulled out everything to make sure my pink blanket and Poesie book would fit in first. After that, I swapped some clothes for others. I shoved it all in and pushed down hard. I’d fold them later. The flap barely covered the top, so I had to yank on the straps to get them to buckle.
“Remember to put on two pairs of underwear,” Mutti called.
“Put on, or did you mean pack?” Werner asked.
“Put on, so you have more room to pack,” repeated Mutti, “And pack two more pairs.”
I unstrapped the knapsack and things tumbled out. How was I going to add any more?
“Reni.”
Pappi stood in the doorway, a box in his hands.
“Last chance to leave things with the Bremekamps,” he said.
