by Michael Dean
Himmler decided that the attack on the Jewish Quarter should culminate in the taking of hostages - Jewish males, aged between fifteen and twenty-four. The exact number was not determined, but Himmler wanted hundreds. He also wanted the hostage-taking left to the NSB.
Rauter bowed to this success for Rost van Tonningen, but insisted that the disarming of the NSB, and their military wing, the WA, was not to be reversed. As nobody seriously believed the Jews had any weapons, despite the calls for them to be handed in, an unarmed NSB/WA force was believed to be up to the job. The Amsterdam police were detailed to assist the Dutch Nazis, where necessary.
Though he didn’t say so at the meeting, Rauter had mixed feelings about the coming attack on the Jewish Quarter. It would make future deportations more difficult. It would disrupt production - he could almost hear Hirschfeld saying that, and he agreed. It was bad for public order – like the boycott of Jewish shops had been, in Germany, in 1933.
But there was no alternative. The attack was to go ahead.
*
It was the involvement of the Amsterdam police which produced a leak of the planned attack. The warning came from patrolman, Felix Klomp, once a tough centre-half for the Ajax junior team. Klomp had known Joel from his Ajax days. It rankled with him that a player who could have become an Ajax great was no longer allowed to play. Felix Klomp could see no good reason for this.
Klomp, naturally, had no idea where Joel Cosman was, but Amsterdam is a village – a big village, but a village. He told the nearest Jew he could find. Joel got the news, via Lard Zilverberg, within hours. He called a meeting of the knokploeg, at the coal shed hideout.
The mood was subdued after the failure to blow up the Arminius. The fates, or luck, or God, seemed to have abandoned them. Gerrit Romijn and five of his Catholic boys turned up. They were quiet these days, too – there was no more teasing their old foes from the battles on Rapenburg Bridge.
‘Thank you all for coming,’ Joel said. He was sitting cross-legged on the cement floor. He didn’t need to stand, or raise his voice. Everybody was listening. ‘We can’t expect the NSBers to be kind enough to trap themselves, by marching over the Blaauw Brug again,’ he said. ‘They could come past any or all of the guard posts, into the ghetto. We’ll just have to pick the most likely ambush points. I’ve divided us into four groups. More than that, and we’ll be spread too thin. ‘
The stationing of the four groups was : The north end of Jonas Daniel Meyer Plein, guarding the synagogue; the intersection of Jonas Daniel Meyer Plein and Waterloo Plein, guarding the market; the intersection of Jodenbree Straat and Zand Straat, at the southern end of the Oude Schans canal; and lastly Rapenburger Straat, at the northern end of the canal.
There were nods of approval, nobody argued, everybody understood his reasoning. Joel had put the four sub-groups towards the south west corner of the ghetto, close enough to each other to communicate, clustered around the targets they assumed would be attacked. They all assumed the Nazi intention was to destroy the ghetto. Joel then allocated each of the men present to one of the four groups.
Gerrit Romijn raised his hand.
‘Yes Gerrit?’
‘You’ve kept all my group together. I reckon you should spread us out.’
‘Why?’
‘There are maybe … things that could happen … where we can help by being …’ He tailed off.
‘By not being Jews, you mean?’
‘Yeah.’ Gerrit was looking down at his boots.
‘I think that’s right,’ Joel said. ‘I’ll redo the groups.’
Joel changed the list in front of him, with a pencil, and read out a revised list.
‘What about me?’ It was Manny. ‘You missed me out, you shmerul. I wasn’t on the list, either time’
‘You’re staying here, with Tinie.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Somebody’s got to stay. We can’t leave this place unguarded, Manny.’
‘Don’t give me that. If they find the hideout, all the guards in the world won’t help.’
‘And suppose we need the car?’
‘I can’t drive.’
That got a laugh.
Manny had been sitting on the floor, with the others. He stood, walked over to Tinie and sat next to her on the bunk. He put his arm round her. Then he put his hand on her stomach, where they were waiting for a bump to appear.
‘How can I tell my son, I …’
‘… or daughter,’ Tinie said.
‘Shut up, woman! I’m making a speech here! How can I tell my son or daughter that
I didn’t try? I mean it, Joel. I want to be a better father than my father was to me. I already have the shame of being Hans-Max Hirschfeld’s nephew. Don’t let them say we didn’t fight. Eh, Joel? Me as well as you. Even if we go down, don’t let them say we didn’t try. I’m asking you to give me a place, Joel, but I’m going anyway.’ He turned to Tinie. ‘You understand, don’t you?’
Tinie nodded, hugged him and whispered ‘I love you’ in his ear. She put her hand over his, on her stomach.
Joel nodded at Manny. ‘OK. Well, given that you’re completely useless … I mean, you can’t even run messages, because you don’t listen, and you’d probably get lost. You’d better stay with me and Gerrit, so we can look after you.’
Manny put his tongue out, then ran his fingers through his bristly hair. ‘That’ll do. And perhaps I’ll surprise you, Joel.’
‘I doubt it. One more thing,’ Joel added. ‘Weapons. Well?’
‘We’ve got some knuckle-dusters,’ one of Gerrit’s boys said. ‘That’s about it.’
‘We could do with some wood from the timber yard,’ Joel grinned at Gerrit. ‘Remember?’
Once again, Gerrit didn’t respond to the joshing. He looked down at the cement floor, without a word.
Joel shrugged. ‘We could maybe get some timber staging from the shipyard. Other than that, its chair legs, iron bars, improvise and God-bless-you.’
Gerrit suddenly jumped up and went over to Joel. Joel stood, so they were toe- to-toe, standing close. Everybody else was sitting down. There was dead silence in the hideout. Not knowing what Gerrit wanted, Ben Bril glanced at Lard Zilverberg and tensed, ready to spring at Gerrit, if he went for Joel.
Gerrit Romijn pulled the cross at his throat, so the thin gold chain that held it snapped.
‘There’s something I want to say to you,’ he said, as if they were alone.
‘What’s that then, Gerrit?’
‘Sorry!’ Gerrit blurted out. He was red in the face. ‘Sorry, Joel. If the Nazis are Christians, then I’m not.’ He threw the cross on the floor, at Joel’s feet. It rang against the cement.
Joel bent lithely and picked it up. He gave it back to Gerrit, putting it in his hand and closing his fingers over it. ‘Keep your cross, Gerrit. The Moffen aren’t Christians. They aren’t even worthy Germans.’
Gerrit sniffed and put the cross in his pocket. ‘I’m your wingman, Joel. You’re my job.’
‘I’m proud to fight alongside you, Gerrit.’
*
Rauter ordered the hostages to be gathered in Jonas Daniel Meyer Plein, in front of the synagogue. The NSB/ WA raiding party was put under the direct command of Rost van Tonningen. Rauter put over a third of Amsterdam’s five hundred Ordnungspolizei on standby, for the duration of the razzia.
As an afterthought, the Obergruppenführer ordered two battalions of SS-Totenkopf Infantry Regiment 4, one based in Zandvoort, one in Amersfoort, to stand by their vehicles, ready for action. He then got on with other work, while awaiting developments.
Just as Rauter turned his mind to other matters, the Rapenburg sub-group, under Ben Bril, took up their positions, under a slate-grey curved sky. They noticed some women, including Protestant and Catholic nuns, gathered in the street. Ben walked along
Rapenburger Straat and went over to them.
‘Ladies, we’re expecting the NSB to attack here any minute. I suggest you move
on. For your own safety. Please.’
‘We know there’s going to be fighting,’ said a middle-aged woman. ‘That’s why we’re here.’
‘Pardon?’
‘We’ve come to take the children,’ said one of the nuns. ‘We’ll keep them safe.’ She nodded at the tenement building, rearing up over them, in the narrow street. Over the doorway, there was a mezuzah containing a scrap of the scroll of the law. The words Jewish Orphanage were carved into the stonework, above it.
The big wooden door opened, and more women came out, escorting Jewish children, holding hands, two by two, huddled into coats. They spilled onto Rapenburger Straat. Each was carrying a regulation-issue battered suitcase. One or two had managed to cling onto a favourite toy, in addition to the suitcase.
Ben Bril cleared his throat. ‘Take them out over the Blaauw Brug, please mevrouw,’ he said, to the woman who had spoken to him. ‘We don’t expect the NSB to come that way. I’ll send of couple of my men to go with you. Where are you taking them?’
‘To the Begijnhof,’ said one of the nuns. ‘Some of them can stay with us there. We’ll find families for the rest - people who will hide them. We’ll make sure they’re safe, rest assured, meneer.’
By now, the narrow Rapenburg was solid with children. Ben motioned to two of his small command to go with them, then watched the crocodile out of sight. The children were silent as they walked off, disciplined beyond their years by fear.
The four knokploeg groups took the positions Joel had given them. And nothing happened. They waited so long, they began to wonder if the intelligence about an attack on the Jewish Quarter was wrong. In fact, not expecting any resistance, knots of black uniformed NSB and WA had drifted into the Jewish Quarter any old how, mainly from the north, through the newly completed Gelderskade checkpoint.
From there, they had started seizing young male Jews on the streets. They were taking them toward Jonas Daniel Meyer Plein. All the NSB and WA were unarmed. They had not yet come up against any of the waiting knokploeg groups, who were to the south and east of them.
However, a large group of NSB, led by Rost van Tonningen himself, had decided to ‘teach the Jews a lesson’ by attacking the Waterloo Plein Market. This force had come into the square via Weesper Straat, to the south of Joel Cosman’s group, who were at the top end of the market. More than twenty of them charged at the centre aisle of stalls, just as Old Mother Bril was going back to her supplier for more apples.
With whoops of glee, the NSB fell on the old lady, smashing her cart, trampling her fruit, beating her until she fell to the ground, then kicking her, as she lay there. Some of the traders ran to her aid, but they were beaten back. Hartog Mof, the rag dealer, his face streaming blood, was seized by two NSB, his arms pinned behind his back. He was frogmarched through the market toward Jonas Daniel Meyer Plein.
Cross-eyed Ko, the watch dealer, put his hands in the air. ‘Don’t hit me!’ he said.
‘Don’t hit me. I surrender.’ They did hit him, but he was saved from a bad beating by his stock of clocks and watches, which the NSB plundered.
‘Take them to the Collection Point,’ shrieked Rost van Tonningen, furious at the distraction this looting represented. ‘Take the Jews to the Collection Point!’
By then, Joel and his group had heard the commotion, as the screams rent the air. Joel sent Manny as a runner to Ben’s group, then he and Gerrit and another four men ran into the market from the north.
They encountered the two NSB holding Hartog Mof by the arms, dispatched them with a couple of punches and told Hartog to run for it. Hartog shook his head. ‘I’m staying,’ he said. He joined them.
A wedge of over twenty NSB came running down the central aisle of the market, straight at the Jews. Joel and his little group, outnumbered four or five to one, took them head on. Joel was swinging a stave, two others had chair legs. Gerrit Romijn caught the leading NSBer in the face with an iron bar, smashing his jaw and the lower part of his skull.
The stalls around the Jews were being torn down in the battle. Ben Bril and his group came running, with Manny scampering at the head of them. They threw themselves at the NSBers, relieving the vastly outnumbered Jewish fighters, one of whom was now on the ground, unconscious. Ben took out two WA with as many punches.
Rost van Tonningen had taken a glancing blow in the face. It had taken him a while to recognise and accept that Jews were putting up a fight. When he did, he radio’d the other NSB commanders in the Jewish Quarter for help. The seizing of individual Jews was abandoned. Nearly a hundred NSB made their way to the top end of the Waterloo Plein market, where the fighting was concentrated.
By now, the other knokploeg groups had joined Joel’s and Ben’s. The restricted space between the stalls favoured the outnumbered Jews. But some had already been too badly hurt to fight on. Joel himself was bleeding from a slash in the face. Gerrit, who was fighting like a dervish at Joel’s side, had killed the man who had slashed Joel, but his left arm was broken. Manny had taken hard blows to the body, but was flailing and windmilling with a stave, and had done some damage.
The knokploeg was surrounded. Slowly, inexorably, more and more of them were battered to the ground, as more and more NSBers and WA arrived. One of Gerrit’s boys was dead. Another was on the ground, clutching his side, screaming from a knife wound. Joel was about to try to surrender, before they were all killed, when the press of NSB around him suddenly grew lighter.
Manny heard yells and shouts, coming nearer: ‘NSB bastards!’ ‘They’re attacking the Jews!’ ‘Get them!’ ‘Come on, come on!’ Through a film of blood on his face, Manny saw that the man fighting next to him was not from the knokploeg. And then, suddenly, he was surrounded by strangers, most with bits of pipe, chunks of machinery, staves …
‘Who are you?’ he gasped.
‘We’re from the Klattenburg Raincoat Factory,’ said a giant next to him, swinging an iron bar in front of him. ‘Come on! Let’s get them!’
The NSB ran for it. They did not bother to protect their commander, van Tonningen, who was forced to leg it out of the market. Ducking into a side-street, he radio’d to Rauter that he was handing over to the German authorities the task of the taking of Jewish hostages, owing to the presence of ‘undesirable elements’ in the Jewish Quarter. These elements, van Tonningen continued bitterly, were better armed than his own men, since Herr Rauter, in his wisdom, had decided to disarm the NSB and WA.
In his office, Rauter, a half-smile playing around his face, ordered a hundred and fifty armed Ordnungspolizei into the ghetto – the order to take effect that afternoon. He confirmed that the two SS-Totenkopf battalions were standing by their motor transport.
*
The Klattenburg Raincoat Factory had some First Aid equipment, and even a First Aid Officer. Joel, Gerrit and many other knokploeg fighters were treated as they lay on the ground, among the collapsed canvas roofs and abandoned and smashed goods of the market. Some were helped to the Joodse Invalide hospital, at the end of Jodenbree Straat.
One of the factory workers said he was in the CPH, the communist party. He said he would find more CPH men to join in the fight, when the fascists came back, which they surely would.
As they lay there, a steady trickle of workers came to join them. More Jewish traders and other young Jewish males also appeared. Their NSB captors had run off, after holding them for a while, outside the synagogue. It was now clear that they faced a plan to take hostages, and bring them to Jonas Daniel Meyer Plein.
Joel got to his feet. He was groggy from the slash to his face; his mouth was bleeding.
‘Listen,’ he croaked out. ‘They’ll send in the Orpos next, and they’ll be armed. If we go up against them, unarmed in groups, we’ll be slaughtered.’
‘So what do we do?’ Manny said.
‘If they want hostages, they’ll have to go into homes and get them. We work in ones and twos. Ambush them when they go up into the flats.’
‘Should we warn people?’ sa
id Ben Bril.
Joel shook his head. ‘There’s no time. And anyway, what can people do? There’s no easy way out of here.’ Joel turned to Gerrit, whose left arm was hanging uselessly down by his side. ‘Gerrit, go to hospital.’
‘I’m staying with you.’
‘You’re no use to me with one arm. You’re going to pass out any minute.’ Joel called to one of Gerrit’s boys. ‘Cor, go with him.’
Cor Smits nodded and helped Gerrit to his feet. Gerrit grinned, then groaned at the pain in his arm. ‘Give ‘em hell, Moze.’
Joel managed a lopsided grin back, coughing as he swallowed some blood. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Say a few Hail Marys for us,’ Manny called out, to the departing Gerrit and Cor. ‘As my old booba used to say: You can’t have too many friends.’
‘Right, now, disperse,’ Joel yelled, his voice hoarse. ‘Disperse, hide and ambush.’
They had plenty of time to do it. And even to get some rest. It was mid-afternoon before the Orpos, supported by Amsterdam police, rolled up to the far side of the Blaauw Brug, in the high-sided overvalwagens of the Dutch police. They were armed with rifles, side arms and two machine guns. A dog-handling team brought four Alsatians.
There was also a camera unit from the Promi – Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda office - Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda, to give it its full sonorous title. This was the organisation that spread lies: Queen Wilhelmina had abandoned her people: the British were deliberately bombing Dutch civilians: Dutch workers in factories in the Reich were being well-treated.
The German and Dutch police marched in formation over the bridge, and through the now deserted market, with most of its stalls smashed. The two machine guns were set up to form a crossfire, on the equally deserted Jonas Daniel Meyer Plein. The column, as Joel had forecast, then divided into raiding parties, to go into homes and seize Jewish men as hostages.
