by Jan Vivian
TOGETHER IN ANOTHER PLACE
Text Copyright © Jan Vivian 2012
All rights reserved. No part of the text in this publication, electronic or in print forms, may be reproduced by whatever means and in any form, stored in any other retrieval system than that for which it is created or transmitted or by any other means without the prior written approval of the copyright owner.
ISBN : 978-0-9571026-4-4
First published in August 2012, by Jan Vivian Books
OXHILL
Warwickshire
England
CV35 0QN
United Kingdom
Contact: [email protected]
Website: www.janvivianbooks.co.uk
This story is a work of fiction but the setting and the weekly events described, even in these pages, are recorded fact. All the characters and conversations are the product of the author’s imagination and are in no sense to be taken as real or reproduced. The chosen names for the characters featured in this story are not based upon actual persons, living or dead. The locations referred to within these pages have been informed by research or by the author visiting them (The ‘Hollandsche Schouwburg, Amsterdam). Where appropriate, references are acknowledged of sources that served to tell the story, set the scene as far as that was possible, and that inspired the author to do so. These include but are not limited to:
www.hollandscheschouwburg.nl : – visitor’s leaflet and cover image
www.go2war2.nl
Web sites on the history and events at Kamp Westerbork, The Netherlands.
www.numismondo.com – to learn of the currency used in Westerbork camp only.
www.blikopwereld.nl
www.auschwitz.nl – paviljoen/deportatie/Westerbork : 1942-1944.
Various sites referring to the ‘Westerbork Serenade’ and the songs of the Bundes Abend.
www.cympm.com/deportatietimetabledutch
Wenn Ein Paketchen Kommt’ - Willy Rosen (1943) – adapted by JV to set the scene.
Author’s Note:
A visit to the Hollandsche Schouwburg, Amsterdam, this year and the cover image on the simple guide offered to visitors, inspired me to write this story. Dedications to those who suffered in The Holocaust (Shoah) seem to be wholly inadequate given the magnitude of all that happened to my parent’s countrymen. My father was a member of the Dutch Underground movement; his role was never made clear to me during his lifetime. However, the legacy in his mind of all that happened, and that he and his first wife (not my mother) took part in to save ‘onderduikers’, has affected my life too. I was born in Venezuela and have never lived in The Netherlands. I became a British citizen in the early 1960’s but retain strong links to my late parent’s homeland.
In my chosen way I dedicate this story to:
Franciscus Henri Van Dijk - alias Frans Hagenaer - my father.
Jan Vivian
Oxhill, England – August 2012
●
Entree
The Story
Back Cover
Jan Vivian
TOGETHER IN ANOTHER PLACE
Jan couldn’t quite stem the tears.
In spite of his best efforts to control the swell of emotion that the photo had aroused within him, his sight became blurred; the image of a young man capering in front of the camera became unrecognisable in the mist. So too did the snaking line of people, old and youthful, men and women, who had been portrayed. It was as if the photographer had been looking through a keyhole at a group posing for him in a sunny courtyard. The narrow field of view made the observer look closely at the faces; in Jan it had aroused mixed emotions that had momentarily overwhelmed him.
In that simple, almost innocent, image he had seen pathos and heart-breaking naivety, or, perhaps, a sublime acceptance that a different world and changed circumstances, somewhere, awaited a carefully chosen multitude who espoused a faith that the authorities had deemed inappropriate and declared worthy of recording…for a last time.
The looks upon the faces held emotional contrasts; wariness and hope, curiosity and a mis-placed sense of optimism that they would survive the tumult that prevailed all around them. Could they really be living out a nightmare in their home city of Amsterdam? Friends and colleagues, associates, loved ones and members of their extended families…they were all being gathered in, a diverse human harvest that would be gauged and winnowed before they were transported.
The invader had not been alone in that task.
On the one hand he had been assisted by collaborators; on the other by those where emotions prevailed upon them to offer equivocal help to fellow citizens. They could not bear to observe displacement and heartbreak, the loosening of historical and familial ties to places of birth and the rendering asunder of a community that had always sustained those less fortunate amongst them. Stark choices had to be made. They had to find the means to save themselves, one and all, as far as that was ever within their gift.
Every living soul in the image might have clung to the hope that a love of life and their faith would prevail over changed circumstances. The reality was to be outrageously and unimaginably different. A sense of self and a generosity of spirit could not withstand the duplicitous, and ruinous, might deployed by an occupier and of some fellow countrymen engaged in their service.
‘Ayee!’ Harriette was startled as a shrill whistle shattered a moment’s fragile peace.
‘More travellers,’ Simon said choosing to make light of a meaningful event.
Another train had announced its arrival at the Westerbork transit camp. They stopped on the path and watched from afar as the train slowed to a stop. There was no platform, no shelter, or calls of welcome to those that looked out of the carriage windows. Orderlies, with Stars of David stitched to their work suits, waited on them under the indifferent gaze of läger officers. The new arrivals would be administered by their fellow inmates and countrymen. They were to be encouraged in the belief that everything, although new, was quite normal.
‘One comes in…and soon, another will leave. Who will be selected to go on the next one?’
‘Be still,’ Simon consoled. For her he would be the optimist; the regime in the camp had changed after overall control had passed to the SS.
‘That will be difficult…there’s so much uncertainty and rumour.’
‘Believe in what can be proved…’
‘How can I do that?’ she said in dismay. ‘It’s not possible for any of us. Even the orderlies…supposedly our fellows, don’t know everything or dare to tell of it if they do. It’s more than their life’s worth to disobey. Do that and they too are transported. The true evil is that it is beyond our imagining.’
Simon allowed her to finish. He already knew that many around them closed their minds to the reality of what might await them when they too stepped onto a train and left the camp. Everything was being done to discourage such thoughts – work, concerts, even a shop to buy some goods that hadn’t been seen for some time near their homes in Amsterdam.
‘You can trust me…’
Harriette’s admonishing tone, moderated by fear, was punishment enough for him.
‘I know…’
She brushed wispy strands of hair from her slender high cheeked face. How could her family have been swept up by the authorities and brought here? The family’s tenuous Jewish bloodline had made them guilty, by association. Your ancestry was even counted in fractions; ’one and a half’ set the line.
They watched in silence as the orderlies gathered along the new trackside, waiting to muster the family groups that began to alight from the carriages of a train allowed entry to the ring-fenced encampment. From afar, everything looked perfectly normal.
Close to, the me
n met fearful enquiring stares of the many newcomers. Where would they be taken to? Would they remain together and be of comfort to each other in the over-crowded barrack blocks? The countryside they had passed through had been so peaceful and unremarkable.
They were met by looks that lacked any fulsome reassurance.
‘I…I must find my parents…and, be with my sister, Betty,’ Harriette whispered as the sight of the displaced provoked the fear of kin being lost to her. People would be assembled and leave, for the east; that was the weekly solution the authorities were soon called upon to make, the orders handed down from the Reich’s Marshall himself. The names of the ‘chosen’ were called out by their countrymen.
‘It’s…it’s too ghastly to contemplate.’ Harriette spoke out an intrusive thought.
‘When can I be with you, again?’ Simon asked it, unwilling to concede to the girl’s melancholy.
‘You will see me at the concert, tomorrow.’ Harriette chose to reassure him.
Tuesday’s were special…for entertainment of the highest quality, performed by renowned artists who were captives just like their humbler brethren. Membership of a talented élite bought time, deferred the moment when they too were transported to another place and an uncertain future. She had merely offered to take part in a chorus line or to paint stage props, anything to occupy her mind and pursue an interest that she loved. She had made some progress; she had been asked to rehearse a song chosen for her and felt that to be a singular honour.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, Simon, so let that be enough.’ She had heard his eagerness to know that their separation would not be endured for long.
Simon watched Harriette walk away, indifferent to how her lovely floral print dress had become grubby and wrinkled. He drew comfort from seeing her wearing it in these drab and desolate surroundings. The girl had a wondrous spirit for life and a happy laugh. She allowed the real person to appear when he had said something by way of a compliment that amused her. He felt close to Harriette then, when his words expressed his pride to know her and Harriette had sought him out in the audience after she had been chosen to help in entertaining the detainees.
Then, she would dance and sing on a makeshift stage, the wood plundered from a synagogue in a nearby town. She charmed fellow inmates with a clear voice and gently cadenced words that took them all, far too briefly, to a different world and time. At such a moment, Harriette was a wonder to him, a wondrous girl with long auburn hair who enthralled him.
‘How can I survive, anywhere…without you?’ he dared to call out before closing the gap between them. He was disconcerted to have confessed to his worst fear…that of being separated from her.
‘We can’t let ourselves go,’ she said gently and touched his arm. Her eyes sought some acknowledgment from him that it should be so.
‘I have already…let go.’
He gave an expressive shrug and smiled before clasping her hand to his chest. With the other he held his cloth cap.
It had been the first thing Harriette had noticed about him, the jaunty way that Simon walked and the cap worn so carelessly as if in acceptance of his circumstances and that others could never, quite, diminish. He was but twenty two, already gifted as a jeweller, a handy person to have around; he would find his way, somehow. That was something of the story he had told her about himself, save that he was alone in the camp. His family had been taken a few months before the authorities caught up with him. He’d been spared the punishment cells. All links with his relations had been severed; not even a postcard, thrown from the deportation trains, had found its way to him.
A dysfunctional existence in Amsterdam, followed by a stay in the ghetto, had seen to that.
Now, Simon had spoken out in ways that were at odds with the mental image she kept of the young man beside her. He knew of art, and some music, had talked of books and there were entertaining stories to tell of a happy childhood. So much of what he held dear she shared with him. Who could have ordained that it be so, that she should meet him?
‘So soon?’ she whispered. ‘Is that allowed…letting go? How can you know?’ Her lips trembled as she thought through what Simon had so readily admitted of his feelings. ‘We’ve only just met…and…here of all places.’
‘I did so from the moment I first saw you and heard you sing. And then…I was able to speak to you…I was allowed to do that. You made me very happy.’
‘I’m not that important.’ She blushed on hearing his gentle teasing of her.
‘Yes, you are…to me.’
Harriette shook her head to disavow what had been said.
‘Please? Please don’t say anymore? Where…where we are makes…makes those feelings seem so unreal.’
‘Not so…that’s not so!’ Simon tried to keep Harriette from releasing his hold even though he felt her hands shake. ‘Stay? Do that for me…a moment longer?’
She heard the plea in his voice and felt herself agreeing that they should be together once more. Closing her eyes, Harriette summoned up the resolve to continue as normally as circumstances allowed.
‘Walk me to my hut…where we are, my family? Do that for me, then?’
‘Gladly done…I’ll do that gladly!’ he laughed out like a child granted a special wish.
Harriette was charmed. ‘But, Simon? Let go of my hand, please? People will talk…’
‘Let them! Something normal is happening…’
‘Is it, ‘happening?’
‘For me it is, yes…yes, certainly!’
Harriette was unable to offer a reply. It was far too early for her to admit that Simon had captured her heart. It was enough to have him in her thoughts, a devoted distraction from all that prevailed around them and that pre-occupied her. She felt so tired from being caught beyond a known world, a modest home in an apartment overlooking a tree-lined canal, a place of music and laughter, song and evocative dance. There, dreamless nights soothed and restored a receptive mind.
●
‘What a charming young man,’ Judith told her. ‘I think he’s smitten…quite lost over you.’
‘I don’t know, mother,’ Harriette answered somewhat evasively.
She wondered what would be made of her behaviour when she was in his company and her family looked on.
‘Don’t you…know?’ Judith held her daughter’s arm as they strolled along a path that separated the over-crowded barrack blocks where they had been uncomfortably billeted. ‘Where’s your Pa got to?’
‘He’s talking, to the orderlies…asking about some work…and, what is to happen to us all.’
‘We’ll know that next week, lievert…or in the weeks after.’
‘You mean before another concert?’
‘Yes…that’s how it goes here. Are you performing again?’
‘It seems so, yes...tomorrow evening.’
That she had been asked to sing meant that she had been spared a journey. The chosen piece had found favour with recent audiences; she had learnt that the camp’s commandant had even asked for it especially. It was a German song that wouldn’t offend his Aryan sensibilities. During the evening, at least, he would be entertained by people of repute even if they were camp inmates; they weren’t the marionettes whom the national Chamber of Culture had proclaimed, under the direction of the occupiers, were more suitable for the world beyond the fence.
‘There are so many people here…so many gifted people, dear…you among them. You’re only just beginning and yet they have asked you.’
‘Yes…yes…’ Harriette had been surprised by her mother’s remarks; they had been as one with her own thoughts.
‘Don’t be cross…’
‘I’m not,’ she said to reassure. ‘I was pre-occupied…and I’m concerned…and, I wanted Betty to be with us.’
Judith knew her daughter to be a thoughtful young woman.
‘She’s poorly…but let that be a worry for me and your father. It’s the food…it’s so bad, and there’s so little of
it, that she’s grown weaker since we arrived here. It is a worry…’
‘I didn’t know it had gone so far.’ Harriette heard her mother’s deepening concern. ‘Go back to her?’
‘And if I do…will you go back to your young man?’
Judith squeezed her daughter’s arm to prevail upon Harriette that she did so.
‘Simon’s not that…’
‘Does he know? I’m not sure that you do…’
‘Is that really so?’
‘Yes, dear…it is.’ Judith stopped and chose to kiss Harriette’s hand. ‘Be with him, that Simon…while there’s time for you both.’
Harriette met once again the haunted look upon her and nodded in avowal of an unspoken reality that they knew would soon have to be confronted. The round up in the city had brought them into a quarter of Amsterdam where they and the multitude of citizens of a like faith could be recorded. In doing so they had crossed a threshold, from a known existence to one of uncertainty and fear. It had struck her as deeply ironic that she, a lover of art and performing in song and dance, had proclaimed her existence a few weeks before in the renamed Jewish Schouwburg, a renowned theatre of Holland. Now, it had become an assembly place of quite a different kind.
‘Simon…Simon likes to watch me dance…to hear me sing. That is where we met, in the Great Hall…right here, in this camp.’
‘I know, Harriette,’ mother’s soft laugh in agreement seemed out of place.
‘Did you?’
‘I saw you together…’
‘So?’
‘So, now he walks you home.’
‘It’s far away from that!’ Harriette answered vehemently.
‘I know...I know.’ The poignancy of what she said made mother’s voice tremble with emotion. ‘It’s like a courtship…the beginning of another journey for the pair of you.’
‘We’ve only just met, mother…’
‘So, spend every moment that you can together.’
Harriette sighed in dismay that they should even be speaking like this about her and Simon in this God-forsaken place. She could think of it in no other way. Her family’s prayers and supplications to be spared detention had gone unanswered.
