Yesterday, was Dutch memorial day. I had dinner with my dad, and then we went to the traditional two minutes of silence, at the Apollolaan monument erected in memory of the 29 victims executed by the Nazis in reprisal for the successful assassination of a notorious Sicherheitsdienst officer. It's at the corner of the Beethovenstraat, which is the center of bourgeois German- Jewish refugees's life in Amsterdam before the war, and some survivors after. (Arnon Grunberg has captured what it's like to grow up with their shadows in Blue Mondays.) Officially, Dutch memorial day has evolved into a cosmopolitan reminiscence; without much fanfare at the Apollolaan the focus remains resolutely on the Nazi victims.
My dad (now 76) spent most of his childhood at Westerbork, initially a refugee camp, but as Wikipedia reports, "the Nazis took over the camp and turned it into a deportation camp" (in German, Durchgangslager Westerbork). He was about a year old when his family arrived there as refugees from Berlin; he was almost seven when the Canadian armed forces liberated them. One need not be exposed to much of the science of memory to realize that his memories of this period are not entirely his own. Even so, in retirement (recall), he participates in an education program, where he shares his wartime experiences. (He is also active in anti-Racist events. For those that can read Dutch, here's some quotes from him at a Muslim-Jewish dialogue.) He's articulate and, while hindered by a recent hip-fracture, mobile, and may well become the last Holocaust survivor despite being an avid chain-smoker. He travels all around the Netherlands to speak at schools, and today he'll be on Dutch TV.
Not unlike many of his generation, my dad was not very comfortable talking about his (nor asking others about their) Wartime experiences. He likes to think that he only started to open up after some self-help courses about twenty years ago. Indeed, he participated in the culture of silence, but many stories were already familiar to me already at a young age.
The crowd at the Apollolaan memorial ceremony has been growing in recent years. I recognize some of my old Jewish elementary school acquaintances. Many of them are not orthodox at all, but they are wearing yamurkes. During the war, their grandparents (or parents) were forced to wear a Star of Davids (recall my post on Betty Gerard), and now they freely choose to be marked Jewish. I also recognize a few of my non-Jewish high school friends. To my dad's mild annoyance, I am invisible to all. I explain that if they remember me, it's with lots of curly hair and thick glasses (and would assume I am still Stateside).
Among the regular stories my dad would sometimes mention his playmate, Klausje Weinberg. As the years passed by less so. Klausje did not figure in any of the other survivor's stories in my father's circle. So, all I knew was that he might have been my father's friend at Westerbork, but it was also quite possible that several memories were being conflated. I sensed that my father was also unsure. Last December my dad went to Dortmund, Germany, to speak about his war-time experiences. A German blogger recounts what happened: "I would like to see the names of the victims from Dortmund; maybe I recognize some," my dad says to the hosts and walks to the posters. There he notes that Klaus Weinberg is on the list of murdered Jews from Dortmund.
Klaus was born on 10 January, 1938; he lived at Ostwall 58, Dortmund. His parents fled to Holland. Eventually he found his way to Westerbork, where he spent three years. There he was my dad's best friend. Suddenly Klaus disappeared from my father's life. In Dortmund my dad learned that at age six, Klaus was killed at Auschwitz, on July 7, 1944.
Just as the two minutes of silence got underway, he turned to me and said with determination, "Klausje Weinberg."
Here's the picture taken of my dad just before he recognizes Klausje's name at the poster
thanks for sharing this, Eric. really touching.
Posted by: ingrid robeyns | 05/06/2014 at 09:12 PM