by Michael Dean
‘Give Frau Uhlig the details, addresses and so on, before you go,’ Rauter commanded.
Hirschfeld nodded.
‘We’ll set up a newspaper,’ Rauter said. ‘So we can get proclamations to the Jews quickly.’
‘Yes,’ Hirschfeld said. He had heard of this being been done in other cities under Nazi occupation - Prague, Warsaw. ‘I know someone who can edit it for you.’
‘Name,’ Rauter barked, nodding at the silently typing Frau Uhlig.
‘Simon Emmerik.’
Rauter asked no questions. The meeting was coming to an end. Hirschfeld decided to make his big play – to save as many Jews as he could. He shifted in his chair again, squaring his shoulders.
‘Herr Rauter, as you know, my colleague meneer van Tonningen and I are agreed on the overall strategy for the integration of Holland into the Reich. That strategy is to maintain Dutch economic independence as a full trading partner, serving the Reich’s interests. Now, I would hate to see this put at risk by the actions of a couple of Jewish hotheads.’
‘One of whom is your nephew.’
‘Unfortunately, yes.’
‘Alright. Get to the point, Hirschfeld.’
‘The point, Herr Rauter, is this: There are Jews in key positions in the economy in nearly every industry …’
Hirschfeld shut his eyes for a second, thanking God that Rauter had not invited van Tonningen to this meeting. With him there, he could never have got away with that assertion.
There were virtually no Jews in major sectors of the Dutch economy, like construction and agriculture. The Jews were concentrated in the diamond industry, retail trade, clothing and food. The overwhelming majority of them – unlike in Germany – were working- class. Only the diamond industry would be noticeably affected by ‘emigration.’ But fortunately Rauter was not an economist.
‘Rather than damage the economy, and cause disruption, by willy-nilly emigration, let us protect those who are essential to our well-being. I propose a list, Herr Rauter. You could call it the Hirschfeld List, of Jews in reserved occupations, needed by the economy, and therefore not subject to deportation.’
‘The Hirschfeld List?’ Rauter was silent for a moment. ‘Alright,’ he said, eventually. ‘But in return, I want an increase in output from the shipbuilding yards. Van Tonningen and I stuck our necks out to get the H class cruisers built in Amsterdam. Construction of the Arminius is falling behind, owing to sabotage by your Jews. Can you deliver what I am asking for?’
Hirschfeld nodded. ‘Yes, consider it done. I’ll speak to the shipyard workers. I’ll need a letter from you, authorizing me to put people on the Hirschfeld List.’
‘Frau Uhlig will draw one up, before you leave this office this morning.’
‘Thank you, Herr Rauter.’
‘You’re welcome, Hirschfeld.’
*
Back at his office, Hirschfeld sat at his desk, dry mouthed. Annemarie van Dijk came in.
‘Your sister telephoned. She said she would telephone you again.’ Hirschfeld nodded. ‘She sounded upset.’
Annemarie was still speaking when the telephone on his desk shrilled, making him jump. Else was indeed upset. She was crying. ‘Leen’s been round. You know her boy works at the Town Hall?’ Hirschfeld did know. ‘There’s a warrant out for Manny. They’re looking for him.’
‘Else, there’s nothing I can do. They think he’s implicated in the death of a policeman, a German. I can’t protect him.’
‘You knew about it?’ She was screaming down the phone. ‘Since when?’
‘Since this morning.’
‘And you’re just sitting there? Max, go and warn him. Go round to his room, now.’
‘It’s too late for that.’
‘Max, if you leave Manny in the lurch, don’t bother to come back home. I’ll change the locks, so help me God! Go there! Now!’
Hirschfeld nervously fiddled with the plaited cord of the telephone. ‘Alright, I’m on my way.’
He had felt cold in Rauter’s office. On his way out, he took his coat, hat and his hand-knitted brown muffler from the hat-stand. In the outer office, Annemarie, at her desk, looked up from her work.
‘I’m going out,’ Hirschfeld said. ‘Personal business.’ Annemarie looked surprised, but said nothing. ‘Telephone Peter Lambooy at the NSM. Tell him I wish to address the shipyard workers.’
‘All of them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘What do you mean, where? In the canteen.’
‘They won’t all get into the canteen. There’s over a thousand of them.’
Hirschfeld nodded. ‘Correct. There’s actually 1,360 of them. OK, make it outside on the docks, where they are working on the Arminius. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain. Tell him I’ll need a megaphone, or something.’
Annemarie was making notes in shorthand. ‘What time? After they finish work?’
Hirschfeld allowed himself a bleak smile. ‘No. Half an hour before. Four-thirty.’
As he left the ministry building, Hirschfeld passed his official car parked in the courtyard. His chauffeur, in shirtsleeves, was washing it, lovingly dabbing at the coachwork with a chamois cloth.
‘Goedemorgen, meneer Hirschfeld!’ The chauffeur, an old soldier with a handlebar moustache and grey hair, straightened, practically coming to attention, embarrassed at being seen in his shirtsleeves.
‘Dag Hendrik,’ Hirschfeld snapped, walking on briskly, before the driver could offer him the use of the car. Attempting to help his nephew evade the authorities was hardly official business. Hirschfeld could feel the driver’s puzzled stare on his back as he strode away.
A number 14 tram rattled past him and stopped. The 14 ran through the Jewish Quarter, but he decided to walk. He needed to clear his head. He tried to recall the last time he had left his desk to subvert the Occupying Authority. He couldn’t. There hadn’t been a last time. Above him, dense grey clouds gathered, lowering, threatening fog.
Hirschfeld crossed the Amstel at the Blaauw Brug. A six-wheeled armoured car overtook him. He had never seen an armoured car on the streets before. The hatch of the turret was open; a coal-scuttle helmeted Orpo peered out. For a second, their eyes met, before the armoured car swept on, into the Jewish Quarter.
Hirschfeld recalled seeing a corps of Orpos marching through the centre of Amsterdam, three abreast, just after the German invasion. They were called police, perhaps to reassure the civilian population, and their uniforms were green, like the police in Germany, but they were soldiers alright, in their jackboots and steel helmets. And Manny had apparently killed one of them. Or at least the Occupying Authority thought he had, which came to the same thing.
At the end of the bridge, an even bigger shock awaited Hirschfeld. Two poles had been erected about eight feet high. Nailed to them, forming an arch, was a broad wooden sign with black lettering on it. In capital letters it said:
JUDEN VIERTEL
JOODSCHE WIJK
To the side of the improvised arch there were red and white wooden road barriers: two pieces of wood about three feet apart running to both ends of the bridge.
Rauter was sealing off the Jewish Quarter.
Hirschfeld stopped, breathing deeply. Rauter had not said a word about this, this morning. After a moment, he felt the colour coming back into his face. They could not, he thought, seal off the Jewish Quarter completely. It was too big. And even if they did, not all Jews would be within the ghetto, thus created.
Hundreds of Jews lived outside the Jewish Quarter, as Hirschfeld himself did. Also, there was a minority of non-Jews living among the Jews in the Jewish Quarter. Hirschfeld’s mind raced. Any measures against the Jews would be difficult, if not impossible, without a register of who was a Jew and who was not. But of course the
Germans had started that. Registration of the market traders was starting today.
Hirschfeld looked up at the sky, then down again. There seemed to be no checks at all, at the newly
constructed archway. But even as he stood there, two NSBers cycled up, leaned their bicycles against the ramshackle wooden structure and grinned cockily.
Hirschfeld walked toward them. ‘Goedemorgen.’
‘Goedemorgen. Kunt u zich legitimeren?’
Hirschfeld pulled out his identity card.
The young NSBer made a show of checking it.
‘You a Jew?’
‘No.’
‘With a name like Hirschfeld?’
‘It’s German. I was born in Bremen.’
‘You’re German?’
‘Naturalised Dutch.’
‘What is your business in the Jewish Quarter?’
‘I’m going to see a friend.’
‘Friend’s name?’
‘Tinie Emmerik.’
‘Your business with her?’
‘She’s my mistress.’
‘You fuck Jewesses?’
‘Yes.’
The two NSBers looked at each other and laughed. ‘Have a good time,’ said the one who had checked the card.
Hirschfeld walked past them, through the makeshift arch, into the Jewish Quarter. He strode along St Anthoniebree Straat, into the top of Jodenbree Straat, his steel-tipped heels clicking on the pavement. He felt armoured in his coat and gloves, conscious of his prosperity. He inhaled the familiar stink from the fetid waters of the Oude Schans, then crossed into Batavia Straat.
The door to Manny’s room was painted a grubby brown; the paint was flaking off. Hirschfeld banged with a gloved fist, hoping there would be no response. There was not. He did not bang again, or call. He imagined himself telling Else he had done all he could.
On impulse, he walked further into Batavia Straat, to Tinie’s room. He had a key; he let himself in. Tinie was sitting in the room’s one armchair, her legs half curled under her body, in a sort of foetal position.
‘Hello Max.’ The briefest of pauses. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’
Tinie, with her tiny, boyish frame, brought out the bully in him. He was aware of that, regularly felt remorse, sometimes deep remorse, but was helpless before the power of his own desire.
‘Well, I’m here,’ he said, gruffly.
She vacated the armchair, so he could sit down. He dropped his coat and muffler on the floor and sat heavily, needing to rest after the walk. He thought he heard a scraping noise behind the curtain which sealed off the niche.
‘So what brings you here?’ Tinie said, loudly.
‘How much have you heard, of what’s going on?’
Tinie looked serious. ‘I heard they were looking for Manny. And Joel Cosman. The Moffen are putting barriers all round the Jewish Quarter.’
Hirschfeld nodded. He twiddled his hat in his lap. ‘Deportations will be starting soon,’ he said. She looked scared. ‘I have created something called the Hirschfeld List, which will protect selected Jews. Your father is at the head of the list. So he’s safe. I have also found him a job. His salary will be determined by me. It will be in addition to what I am already paying your family.’
‘Thank you, Max.’
Hirschfeld nodded. He dropped his hat on the floor, unbuttoned his fly, and motioned her to him.
*
Afterwards, Hirschfeld walked slowly through the Jewish Quarter, his head, for once, mercifully empty. With a touch of defiance at his usual self, he contemplated going into a café. He would sit, he would order a cup of coffee. He would while away time, waste it in abandon of himself and his life. Why not?
He headed for Ernst Cahn’s place, the Koco Ice-Cream Parlour, in Rijn Straat. It was one of the meeting places for Amsterdam’s German-Jewish refugees. They were his kin-folk, Hirschfeld felt, even though Else didn’t like them. She found them snobbish and superior - overly conscious of being German.
A large plane came into view, high in the grey sky: Hirschfeld thought it was a British Halifax bomber. Some people cursed the British for not doing enough, called them cowards, but most were cheered when they saw RAF aeroplanes. They muttered ‘good luck, Tommy,’ under their breath, as the bombers headed to the Ruhr.
‘Good luck, Tommy,’ Hirschfeld said, aloud, in English.
As he pushed open the door of the Koco, he was assailed by a blast of warm air and the sound of Long Freddy playing gypsy fiddle in the corner. There were a few customers in, drinking coffee, eating ice-cream - despite the cold weather - or munching pastries. Ernst Cahn waved hello and came to join Hirschfeld at a corner table.
Hirschfeld was pleased. He expected to be shunned, except when he was needed, because of his association with the Occupying Authority. And, although he didn’t especially like Cahn – he didn’t especially like anyone – he found him interesting. He was, he realised, starved of intellectual – no, make that cultural – companionship.
Cahn was from Munich, originally. He had known the novelist Lion Feuchtwanger well. He also claimed to have known Thomas Mann. The detail on Mann was always thinner than it was on Feuchtwanger, and consisted largely of information in the public domain, so Hirschfeld was sceptical. But at least it was interesting, which was all he demanded of culture and the cultured. He had enough facts in his work.
Cahn snapped his fingers; a waiter brought a milky coffee for them both. They talked about the latest books Emanuel Querido was publishing. Querido published all the emigré writers, from his homely little office, just off the Keizersgracht. Cahn said Querido was publishing a history book by Erich Kuttner, who they both knew, about 1566, the year of hunger in Holland.
As they were talking, the door was thrown open so hard its glass rattled and about half a dozen black-uniformed WA ran in. They were yelling and whooping. One of them was shouting ‘Bring out your Mozes’ Hirschfeld flinched.
Cahn stood up and dashed behind the counter. He picked up the telephone, fixed to a wall bracket, and shouted into it. Long Freddy was the first casualty; the leading WA- man hit him in the face, sending his violin skidding across the floor, broken. Two of the WA had seized a young Jewish couple. Hirschfeld saw the young man fight back, putting himself in front of his girlfriend, or wife. Then they both went down, under a flurry of punches and kicks. Two of Cahn’s waiters were taking on another knot of WA, but getting the worst of it.
Stunned, gasping, Hirschfeld was standing at the table when a red-faced, black-uniformed figure lumbered up to him. The words ‘Do you know who I am?’ formed in his mind, but nothing came out. He felt a massive, clumsy shove in the chest, which sent him staggering backwards, stumbling over his own chair. He kept his feet, determined not to go down. But his back thudded against the wall so hard he whiplashed forward then back, banging the back of his head against the wall. He tasted blood in his mouth; he’d bitten his tongue.
He glanced out the window, desperate for help. The street was empty. The name Koco printed backwards on the ice-cream parlour’s plate-glass window seared itself on his mind. His assailant came at him, his face contorted with hatred.
Just then there was a massive explosion.
Hirschfeld registered the smell. It was ammonia. His assailant lay face down on the floor, screaming at the burning in his back. He had unwittingly protected Hirschfeld from the blast. The young Jewish man and his girl had been on the floor, also shielded. They got up, unsteadily. Both their faces were covered in blood. He put his arm round her; led her toward the door. They were shaking, their knees buckling as they staggered forward. There was another old man sitting in a corner, bewildered, apparently untouched. Two of the WA and one waiter were screaming as the ammonia burnt into their faces.
And then, out of the window, Hirschfeld glimpsed a car pulling up. He watched as four tough-looking dark-haired youths sprang out. The WA in the Koko had had enough. Two of them, unharmed by the ammonia blast, ran as far the doorway. The leading two Jewish youths pushed them back inside, and laid into them. The two WA went down and stayed down. The Jews, and one of the waiters, then got hold of the remaining WA and pushed and dragged them all into one corner. To Hirschfeld
’s great satisfaction, they beat them to a pulp.
The leader called out ‘Stop, that’s enough!’
The Jews stopped instantly, leaving the WA groaning or unconscious. The Jewish leader walked across to Hirschfeld, through the wreck of the cafè. He was good-looking – his face dominated by a hawk-nose. Hirschfeld remembered seeing him at the Waterloo Plein market.
‘I’m Joel Cosman,’ he said.
Hirschfeld’s breath and poise were returning, although his head ached. ‘Hirschfeld,’ he said. ‘Hans-Max Hirschfeld.’
Cosman nodded. ‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘Manny’s uncle. The Secretary General. I’ve seen you before, somewhere. At synagogue, was it?’
‘Not for quite a while.’
‘I’d make yourself scarce if I were you. There’ll be more NSBers here soon. And they’ll call in the Moffen.’
Hirschfeld wasn’t so sure about that. Rauter loathed WA toughs causing disorder on the streets, distracting people from work. But he was hardly going to say that to a knokploeg leader.
He sat down heavily, still in shock, and took a sip of his cold coffee. Cosman turned on his heel. He and his followers ran back to their car, which coughed into life, then disappeared from view.
Ernst Cahn reappeared from somewhere – had he been out the back? The waiters and Long Freddy staggered to tables, to nurse their wounds. Hirschfeld wondered if he could help Cahn, in some way; put in a word when the authorities came. But the ammonia bomb had been premeditated. Cahn would have had WA raids before; he’d laid an ambush. There was nothing Hirschfeld could do. He said goodbye to Cahn, wished him luck, and left the Koco.
*
Thankfully safe back in his office, he sent Annemarie van Dijk out for some mercurochrome, for his back. The bruising where he had thudded against the wall was becoming painful. When she returned, she agreed, with some amusement, to apply the salve herself, as Hirschfeld lay on his front in his underpants on the office sofa - the site of their so-nearly consummated encounter.
‘How did you get these?’ the secretary asked, tracing scratches on Hirschfeld’s back, with two fingers covered with red mercurochrome.
