A long walk through the forest of Baarn follows; Eberhard encounters nothing or no one. After a few hours of brisk walking, frozen and about to lose courage, he suddenly notices a clear sandy path. He is already beyond hoping it will lead to a house, but perhaps it will lead to a station.
It’s getting dark. Although he fears the disappointed faces at home, he cannot stay away for ever. Then something glistens between the trees – a building, white walls, long windows closed up with blinds, and as he comes closer an enormous villa emerges. Further down are some smaller houses and for the first time that afternoon Eberhard feels his blood begin to flow. He walks to a house with the lights on and rings the doorbell. The door swings open and a man looks at him, annoyed.
‘Good evening, sir. I noticed that large building over there in the woods,’ – Eberhard nods towards the villa – ‘and I was wondering, because it looks so uninhabited, whether any rooms are being let out or—’
‘Out of the question!’
Even before he has finished speaking, the man slams the door shut in his face.
Empty-handed, Eberhard goes back to Bergen, where the others are waiting for him behind the dark window. They don’t ask; Eberhard’s face speaks volumes. Jaap stokes the fire and while Eberhard warms himself, he recounts his experiences, including the unpleasant encounter with the man chasing away his last remaining hope.
For a moment, Lien and Jaap look at each other pityingly. Then they burst out laughing.
‘Are you out of your minds?’ Eberhard stares at his beloved. ‘It’s not funny, is it?’
‘You know what that large building was?’ says Lien.
Even Herbert, the Jewish boy staying with them, is now chuckling. Eberhard is struggling to shrug his shoulders.
‘The royal palace, Soestdijk!’
It would take years before Eberhard could see the joke.
Over Christmas their mood is far from cheerful; the holidays are a reminder of the new year and the evacuation approaching, and there is still no solution in sight. They all gather at Janny and Bob’s; even their good friend Frits Reuter and his girlfriend Cor Snel risk the journey so they can come and stay. As a leader of the illegal Communist Party in Amsterdam, Frits has a lot of news to share. His reports, however, do not improve the atmosphere.
On 13 December, the DNP organized a huge celebration at The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, in honour of its eleventh anniversary. In an overcrowded hall, decorated with waving flags, banners and swastikas, Reich commissioner Seyss-Inquart declared that Hitler recognized Anton Mussert, founder of the DNP, as ‘Leader of the Dutch People’. Underneath a row of outstretched arms, Mussert accepted his position.
They listen stoically and eat. Janny and Lien have baked doughnut balls and made a rice table. Late in the evening, the larger party waves goodbye to Lien, Eberhard – a sleeping Kathinka over his shoulder – and Herbert, who leave for their house at the other side of the woods. They kiss each other goodnight and everyone goes to bed, hoping that night will bring the miracle they need.
And the miracle happens. Just as Janny and Eberhard want to stop their random expeditions in the wintry cold in order to prepare for a forced split of the family, Jan Hemelrijk arrives with news.
‘I’ve got something. Just below Amsterdam, in the woods of Naarden. A detached house, only used in summer by two rich ladies. It should be big enough for all of you. This is the ladies’ address.’
After a restless night, Bob and Eberhard, dressed in their best suits, leave for Amsterdam at dawn, all tense, holding out the note with the address like a divining rod. The Jansen sisters live on Minervalaan, a fashionable street with stately mansions. With the fate of their loved ones, their children, the entire Brilleslijper family resting in their hands, they ring the doorbell.
As they try to come across as reliable and charming as possible, Bob and Eberhard disclose their precarious situation – or at least: its safe version. No one can be trusted these days, not even seemingly good people. So Bob and Eberhard are two perfectly normal, non-Jewish, Dutch young men living in Bergen with their families who have to leave at very short notice because of the Atlantic Wall. They conclude their story with the pressing question: can they please rent the summer cottage in Naarden until the end of the war?
The ladies are visibly impressed by these nice young gentlemen. They agree and tell them to come back in two days to sign the lease. Bob and Eberhard quickly return home to the family, who await the verdict at Janny’s. It appears that they are saved, but the thought of being separated from the children has been heavy on their hearts for weeks and no one is able to respond enthusiastically to the good news.
They have a place but no official permit to move to Naarden. The only person who could still try to request one is Bob. The rest of the party is Jewish, or, in Eberhard’s case, a deserter. Before he went into hiding, Bob worked at the National Office for Food Supply, and there Janny sees their only option.
She instantly travels to The Hague to speak to the right people. With gentle charm but a look that will not take ‘no’ for an answer, she arranges for Bob to be allowed back at the Food Supply, this time stationed further north. His new office is in Weesp, a village between Amsterdam and Naarden. During her mission there is no mention of Bob’s status as ‘wanted resistance worker’, so Janny’s suspicion that he is only registered as such in the province of South Holland seems justified. In any case, they will just have to take the risk; there is no other option.
With the required documents in the bag tightly pressed to her chest, she begins her journey back north. It is Friday, late afternoon, and she braves the crowd of commuters rushing towards the weekend. Only men are left, perhaps a few disorientated women. Those who have no need to travel, don’t – certainly not at this late hour. Those who have no business with someone else are not looking for contact.
Janny makes herself small and stares outside. As dusk falls, the meadows behind the window fade and the reflection of her face slowly appears. Her straight hair, tucked behind her ears, protruding cheekbones like tent poles holding up her tightly stretched skin, her dark eyes. The responsibility for all those people depending on her rarely feels heavy, but now she is suddenly overwhelmed. The powerlessness of recent weeks, the imminent threat of being separated from the children, or worse, all of them being arrested . . . and then what?
Her shoulders feel heavy and tense and when she breathes out, it seems as if she tumbles through the seat, through the floor, towards the ground underneath the carriage. Then a stabbing pain in her lower abdomen, behind the bag with their lifeline. She doubles over and peers around to see if anyone is noticing her. The seats next to and opposite her are empty; the gentlemen sit together further down – thank goodness.
She exhales softly. Another stab, fiercer this time. She stifles a cry and begins to feign a cough, folding her upper body over the bag. As she coughs, a grip tightens around her belly, squeezes her empty, squeezes the life out of her until she can no longer breathe. One of the men further down looks up briefly. Janny tries to make herself even smaller in the corner against the window.
Then a warm flow spreads between her legs, pleasant in the coldness of the compartment. The pain is gone and she feels faint. Her feet sway loosely above the linoleum at the rhythm of the switches. The flow turns cold and her thighs feel dirty and sticky. She sits up a little, turns her wet woollen skirt two quarters to the front and stares at the dark stain on her lap. She covers the stain with her leather bag and rests her head against the window, which now only shows a black wall. Some pinpricks of light here and there in the distance. Her breath steams up the glass while warm tears run down from her cheeks and fall apart on her hands.
With great effort, she manages a smile when she comes home, waves the papers Bob eagerly takes care of and retreats to the bedroom to change her clothes. Everyone is relieved they have the permit. She tells no one about the miscarriage.
On 30 January 1943, two days before the coast aroun
d Bergen will be evacuated, the men return to Amsterdam and Eberhard, by his false name J.-J. Bos, signs a lease with Ms C.M. Jansen, for renting the villa The High Nest, Driftweg 2 in Naarden. The rent is 112 guilders and 50 cents per month for the furnished house – and the promise to be careful with the furniture and not use the fine china.
‘You might want to register as new occupants with the mayor of Naarden,’ one of the sisters remarks casually, ‘or he might claim the house for the Germans.’
Bob and Eberhard thank them for the tip and exchange a quick glance – that would be a complete disaster. They want to go, now, pick up the family and leave the village before the evacuations start, but the sisters are all too glad to have the young men visiting and keep lingering in the hall of the fashionable house on Minervalaan.
‘Tell me,’ says the other sister, placing her hand on Eberhard’s forearm, ‘you don’t sound like you’re from The Hague at all. Where are you from originally?’
He has been asked that question before.
‘You know,’ Eberhard answers with a conspiratorial voice, ‘I grew up in Limburg, in the south. I fear you’ll be able to hear that in my accent for as long as I live.’
All four of them laugh and say goodbye warmly.
The last hurdle. The mayor of Naarden. The Nazi mayor of Naarden, Marinus van Leeuwen. While Bob rushes to Bergen to prepare for moving the two households, Eberhard gets on the train to Naarden-Bussum. From there he race-walks to Naarden, enters the fort via the bridge and heads in one straight line to the town hall on Markstraat, opposite the Great Church.
The town hall is a beautiful building, consisting of a pair of houses, side by side, like two brothers. One is larger than the other but in an identical style, with serrated gables and an open tower with a bell and a weather vane at the rear. In the largest, the house on the left, is a stately, arched front door, which Eberhard enters, his mouth dry and his limbs all stiff. Inside, a friendly lady leads him to the room of the mayor, who is working behind his massive desk, flanked by portraits of Adolf Hitler and Anton Mussert. When Eberhard enters, he pushes back his chair, stands up and greets him with an outstretched arm.
‘Heil Hitler!’
Eberhard thinks of Lien and Kathinka, screws up his courage and, for the first time in his life, answers the Nazi salute. He shows his papers. The official lease, the work permit Janny arranged for Bob and a medical certificate from the doctor in Bergen, declaring that ‘Kathinka Anita Bos, in order to recover from severe dysentery, must move to higher areas in the municipality of Naarden’.
Van Leeuwen leafs through the stack, straight-faced, while Eberhard tries to keep his hands still. His fingers keep moving across his palms, as if he wants to rub the seconds ahead. Then the mayor rises.
‘Identity card?’
Eberhard presents the identity cards of Jean-Jacques Bos, Antje Bos née Sillevis, and Kathinka Anita Bos.
Behind his back the bells begin to ring. In their echo, Eberhard breathes out. He thinks back on the failed examination after his starvation cure, his flight to Bergen, to Jan and Aleid, then to Amsterdam and back to Bergen again. This cannot fail. If this goes wrong, it is over. For all of them.
‘Agreed.’
Van Leeuwen presses the required stamp on the municipal papers, puts his signature underneath and, ten minutes later, Eberhard is back outside. He looks up at the Great Church of Naarden and nods briefly. To whom or what he does not know.
Part Two
The High Nest
‘The house at Driftweg was called The High Nest.
It was a very large house with grounds and woodland stretching out to the water.
And there, with our people in hiding, we had all the adventures a person can possibly experience.’
Janny Brandes-Brilleslijper
1
A Villa in the Woods
A safe place to wait out the war was all they had asked for. How much longer this war would last, no one dared to say. And also: not to be separated from the rest of the family – especially the children, like so many of their friends and acquaintances had been forced to. Any shelter would have been fine, be it a barn or an empty warehouse. They had expected anything. But not this.
It is dark when they approach their destination. Naarden village is five, perhaps ten minutes behind them; they have been driving through the heath, followed by woodlands, for some time when, according to the directions, they are almost there. They have been dead quiet the entire journey, tired, worn out by tension, afraid to be stopped along the way. The paved way turns into a sandy path with deep cart tracks – the forest is closing in on them. If they drive any further, their rickety removal van might get stuck.
Bob turns off the ignition and as the headlights dim and the sound of humming of the engine blows away between the trees, a thin calm descends upon them. Clouds of breath in the cabin, Bob is the first to move.
‘Come on. It has got to be here somewhere.’
Janny helps her mother climb out of the van and takes Liselotte in her arms. Outside, the rain hurts their tired cheeks. Trees are creaking in the wind above their heads while the sound of their own footsteps is muffled by heaps of leaves along the path, which they follow onto what seems like a dead end – a tall black wall. The forest.
Janny glances at Bob, who is holding Robbie’s hand. The little one is too tired to cry. He shrugs his shoulders and they move on. Jaap has given Fietje his arm and holds his mother tight. She is shivering with cold. The rest of the party is still on their way – Eberhard with Father, Lientje with Kathinka. It is too dangerous to travel together.
When they reach the edge of the forest, they discover a path square to theirs. It emerges from an open patch of heath to their right and disappears between the trees to their left. Bob gives a nod and they dive into the forest. As soon as Janny finds herself between the black trunks, her shoulders relax – a weight is lifted. She feels at home here.
On the right side of the narrow path, an enormous shadow looms. Around them branches groan, trees sway to the rhythm of the wind, but the house just stands there, solid and unperturbed, not the least bit impressed.
The rain has stopped and a weak moon pushes itself through the clouds above the open fields behind them. They hold still on the path and look at the house. Janny’s eyes glide up along the heavy façade to a white sign between the windows of the ground floor and the first. The black letters read: The High Nest.
The house, a robust cube with a thatched roof, is built in the middle of a vast nature reserve between the villages of Huizen and Naarden. It is obvious this home does not think much of civilization; ignoring all rules of bourgeois architecture, it looks at nature instead. The High Nest has its back turned towards the road and the path that took them here; the entrance to the central hall as well as the kitchen door is at the back. Anyone visiting must follow the narrow path, then go past the house towards the back – which is in fact the front – to ring the doorbell. All the while, the occupants can keep a close eye on the visitor from one of the many windows. These windows are all around the house, spread evenly between the first two floors – their white panes enclosed by claret-coloured shutters.
The front door opens onto a spacious hall, giving entry to three rooms. Straight ahead, overlooking the path, are the living and dining room, on the left side of the hall is a kitchen, on the right an extra room and then a toilet. There is even a telephone downstairs. They giggle as they press the receiver to their ears – to their surprise, the phone is actually connected.
There are four bedrooms and a bathroom on the first floor. Above those, underneath the thatched roof, an attic covers the entire length of the house. Both sides of the roof have man-sized, semi-circular windows, like those in the tower of a church, offering a spectacular view of the surrounding woods and heath, and of the miniature version of The High Nest in the garden; a large shed with a thatched roof and identical paned windows.
Three chimneys rise up from the villa like p
illars, making the building seem indestructible. It is the perfect place to hide.
That night, for the first time in months, Janny sleeps like a baby. No firing above their heads, no noise from the village, no fear of soldiers starting evacuations early, no more worrying where to go. There is nothing but the silence weighing her body down and she sleeps until the winter sun has found its way back to the house. Beside her, the bed is cold. Bob has already taken the children downstairs, so she would not wake.
Last night, in the dark, they had quietly collected their stuff from the van and brought it to the house. After putting the children to bed, they had sat in the living room, anxiously waiting for Lien and Kathinka, and then for Eberhard and Father. When everyone had arrived safely, they had all gone to bed, too tired to talk, too cautious to turn on the light. She has not seen the interior of the house yet. Janny presses herself up on her elbows and takes a look around. The space is bathed in light. The large windows on either side of the attic are merely covered with thin cotton curtains. An ingenious beam construction supports the top of the roof, several feet above her head. In the corner she sees a porcelain sink, a mirror and a cupboard with towels. Broad planks cover the entire floor length.
She swings her legs across the edge of the bed and walks towards the window. Cautiously, she pushes the cotton aside and looks out. No one. She opens the curtains in one go, stands in front of the window audaciously. Trees everywhere, trees as far as her eyes can see. Not one house, not one street, not one person. She breaks into a smile. Voices drift into the room via the staircase and she rushes downstairs, to the children.
The Sisters of Auschwitz Page 10
