It is so complicated this thing called memory. Some memories are sharp and some are vague. Where do my own memories begin and the collective family memories end? How do I tell them apart and does it matter?
Some memories are clearly mine and go back very far. How do I know them to be mine? Because no-one else ever talked about them. Here are a few early ones in no particular order:
- It is dark and I'm in my crib supposedly asleep. It's very still outside. I suddenly hear foot steps running, and a voice shouting "Halt". Nothing and then more running. Shots echo in the empty street. No more running just men talking, words that are not Dutch. My father checks on me, but I pretend to be asleep. I must be about three.
- Looking out the window at the broad Escamplaan boulevard. There are people with pails and baskets smacking the pavement with tools (chisels and axes maybe). I have no idea what they are doing. Later I'm told they are chopping up the asphalt to take home for fuel. It was the hunger winter so it must have been 1944. It was a brutally cold winter and the people had almost nothing to eat and no fuel to keep warm.
- I was two and a half, when I was first aware of Christmas. It was Christmas Eve and the door into the parlor had been closed all day. There was scurrying in and out but I was not allowed to see. Once it was dark my parents led me through the mysteriously closed door. There on the table was a small tree festooned with tiny decorations made from walnut shells, acorns, and pine cones, painted gold and silver, hung on the branches with red ribbons. My mother must have been making them for weeks while I slept. Most of all I remember the bright glow of all the small candles alight on the tree to symbolize the Christ candle - birth of Jesus. It was pure magic. In all the deprivation of the occupation, I don't know where my father got a tree and my mother must have been hoarding candles for months. They produced a miracle in this small child's life. I have loved small trees ever since.
- I also remember very well the ominous night they came for my father. My Tante Ina was at our place. She had put me to bed early and told me I was sick. I didn't feel sick, but since Tante Ina could be quite resolute, I was sick. My mother was in bed in my parents bedroom, also sick. Both rooms were in darkness. My father was away on Red Cross business I was told. They came up the stairs and into our flat. My Tante opened my bedroom door to let the men look in. There was a man in uniform and a man in a leather trench coat framed in the doorway, with the light behind them. They looked in, my aunt said something in German, they nodded and withdrew. I was probably four and aware that I had to keep very still. I remember fear. I was afraid.
On such short notice he had to hide at home. Once hidden, Ina took over. She was a German history scholar and very familiar with the German psyche. She spoke fluent educated German. She created a sick house to ward off a careful search because the Germans were phobic about illness. When the Gestapo arrived she explained the nature of the illness and asked them to be quiet because mother and child were both asleep and very contagious. So instead of doing a thorough search they kept their distance, hovering in the bedrooms doorways, and avoided the closet. My father was spared that day and left immediately thereafter for a safe-house in the country. He joined the ranks of so many others, and became an "onderduiker" (he went underground). He became one of those people he had previously been working to save.
He rarely spoke about the bad times nor did he aggrandize his role. He once told me about an event that gripped him in fear. In his courier role, he delivered bunches of newly forged ration cards and travel documents to different to drops in various cities. He traveled by train from city to city. On one such trip, the train was stopped and boarded by Nazi soldiers. They proceeded to randomly search the travelers and as they were coming through the car toward my father, he was seized with such terror he was frozen in indecision. Should he throw the bundles of cards out the window thus leaving countless hiding people without food for days, or should he hold onto them and gamble that he wouldn't be searched. He described that moment of indecision as one of the most terrifying in his life.
He hung on to the forged cards . As luck would have it, he wasn't searched and the onderduikers got to eat for another month.
- I also remember what hunger felt like. I mean real starvation type hunger. The corollary to that hunger memory, is my recollection of my first piece of good bread. At the end of the war the allies made food drops into the starving cities. Such a large bundle had the good fortune to land on our apartment roof. At the age of five, I was given my very first slice of Swiss bread and it tasted better than the finest cake. To this day, I continue to need bread in my home at all times. It is a true "comfort" food.
- I remember my excitement because my father was taking me to Zuider Park to ride a donkey. My father was not very impressed with the donkey but it was better than nothing. I loved my donkey. It had soft ears and a nuzzling nose. We were one that donkey and me. I was blissfully happy. We didn't do a lot. We walked around a ring and I learned to steer him, make him stop and start him up again. I'm told that the donkey had more enthusiasm for stopping than starting. Life was perfect, I was with my father and riding a donkey. I don't know how old I was because we went a few times. It must have stopped sometime in 44, because the donkeys couldn't have survived the "hunger winter". I still love donkeys.
These are some of my most vivid memories. There are more that I'll add at another time. I'm growing too sleepy to continue now.
