Daniel Silva - The Rembrandt Affair

"While we regarded ourselves as Jews, we were rather well assimilated and not terribly religious. We lit candles on Shabbat but generally went to synagogue only on holidays. My father didn't wear a beard or a kippah, and our kitchen wasn't kosher. My sister and I attended an ordinary Dutch school. Many of our classmates didn't even realize we were Jewish. That was especially true of me. You see, Mr. Argov, when I was young, my hair was blond."

"And your sister?"

"She had brown eyes and beautiful dark hair. Like hers," she added, glancing at Chiara. "My sister and I could have been twins, except for the color of our hair and eyes."

Lena Herzfeld's face settled into an expression of bereavement. Gabriel was tempted to pursue the matter further. He knew, however, it would be a mistake. So instead he asked Lena Herzfeld to describe her family's home on Plantage Middenlaan.

"We were comfortable," she replied, seemingly grateful for the change of subject. "Some might say rich. But my father never liked to talk about money. He said it wasn't important. And, truthfully, he permitted himself only one luxury. My father adored paintings. Our house was filled with art."

"Do you remember the Rembrandt?"

She hesitated, then nodded. "It was my father's first major acquisition. He hung it in the drawing room. Every evening he would sit in his chair admiring it. My parents were devoted to each other, but my father loved that painting so much that sometimes my mother would pretend to be jealous." Lena Herzfeld gave a fleeting smile. "The painting made us all very happy. But not long after it entered our home, things started to go wrong in the world around us. Kristallnacht, Austria, Poland. Then, finally... us. "

For many residents of Amsterdam, she continued, the German invasion of May 10, 1940, came as a shock, since Hitler had promised to spare Holland so long as it remained neutral. In the chaotic days that followed, the Herzfelds made a desperate bid to flee, first by boat, then by road to Belgium. They failed, of course, and by the night of the fifteenth, they were back in their home on Plantage Middenlaan.

"We were trapped," said Lena Herzfeld, "along with one hundred and forty thousand other Dutch Jews."

Unlike France and Belgium, which were placed under German military control, Hitler decided that the Netherlands would be run by a civilian administration. He gave the job to Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart, a fanatical anti-Semite who had presided over Austria after the Anschluss in 1938. Within days, the decrees began. At first, a benign-sounding order forbade Jews from serving as air-raid wardens. Then Jews were ordered to leave The Hague, Holland's capital, and to move from sensitive coastal areas. In September, all Jewish newspapers were banned. In November, all Jews employed by the Dutch civil service, including those who worked in the educational and telephone systems, were summarily dismissed. Then, in January 1941, came the most ominous Nazi decree to date. All Jews residing in Holland were given four weeks to register with the Dutch census office. Those who refused were threatened with prison and faced confiscation of their property.

"The census provided the Germans with a map showing the name, address, age, and sex of nearly every Jew in Holland. We foolishly gave them the keys to our destruction."

"Did your father register?"

"He considered ignoring the order, but in the end decided he had no choice but to comply. We lived at a prominent address in the most visible Jewish neighborhood in the city."

The census was followed by a cascade of new decrees that served to further isolate, humiliate, and impoverish the Jews of Holland. Jews were forbidden to donate blood. Jews were forbidden to enter hotels or eat in restaurants. Jews were forbidden to attend the theater, visit public libraries, or view art exhibits. Jews were forbidden to serve on the stock exchange. Jews could no longer own pigeons. Jewish children were barred from "Aryan" schools. Jews were required to sell their businesses to non-Jews. Jews were required to surrender art collections and all jewelry except for wedding bands and pocket watches. And Jews were required to deposit all savings in Lippmann, Rosenthal & Company, or LiRo, a formerly Jewish-owned bank that had been taken over by the Nazis.

The most draconian of the orders was Decree 13, issued on April 29, 1942, requiring Jews over the age of six to wear a yellow Star of David at all times while in public. The badge had to be sewn—not pinned but sewn —above the left breast of the outer garment. In a further insult, Jews were required to surrender four Dutch cents for each of the stars along with a precious clothing ration.

"My mother tried to make a game out of it in order not to alarm us. When we wore them around the neighborhood, we pretended to be very proud. I wasn't fooled, of course. I'd just turned eleven, and even though I didn't know what was coming, I knew we were in danger. But I pretended for the sake of my sister. Rachel was young enough to be deceived. She loved her yellow star. She used to say that she could feel God's eyes upon her when she wore it."

"Did your father comply with the order to surrender his paintings?"

"Everything but the Rembrandt. He removed it from its stretcher and hid it in a crawl space in the attic, along with a sack of diamonds he'd kept after selling his business to a Dutch competitor. My mother wept as our family heirlooms left the house. But my father said not to worry. I'll never forget his words. 'They're just objects,' he said. 'What's important is that we have each other. And no one can take that away.'"

And still the decrees kept coming. Jews were forbidden to leave their homes at night. Jews were forbidden to enter the homes of non-Jews. Jews were forbidden to use public telephones. Jews were forbidden to ride on trains or streetcars. Then, on July 5, 1942, Adolf Eichmann's Central Office for Jewish Emigration dispatched notices to four thousand Jews informing them that they had been selected for "labor service" in Germany. It was a lie, of course. The deportations had begun.

"Did your family receive an order to report?"

"Not right away. The first names selected were primarily German Jews who had taken refuge in Holland after 1933. Ours didn't come until the second week of September. We were told to report to Amsterdam's Centraal Station and given very specific instructions on what to pack. I remember my father's face. He knew it was a death sentence."

"What did he do?"

"He went up to the attic to retrieve the Rembrandt and the bag of diamonds."

"And then?"

"We tore the stars from our clothing and went into hiding."

Chiara had been right about Lena Herzfeld. After years of silence, she was finally ready to speak about the war. She did not rush headlong toward the terrible secret that lay buried in her past. She worked her way there slowly, methodically, a school-teacher with a difficult lesson to impart. Gabriel and Chiara, trained observers of human emotion, made no attempt to force the proceedings. Instead, they sat silently on Lena's snow-white couch, hands folded in their laps, like a pair of rapt pupils.

"Are you familiar with the Dutch word verzuiling ?" Lena asked.

"I'm afraid not," replied Gabriel.

It was, she said, a uniquely Dutch concept that had helped to preserve social harmony in a country sharply divided along Catholic and Protestant lines. Peace had been maintained not through interaction but strict separation. If one were a Calvinist, for example, one read a Calvinist newspaper, shopped at a Calvinist butcher, cheered for Calvinist sporting clubs, and sent one's children to a Calvinist school. The same was true for Roman Catholics and Jews. Close friendships between Catholics and Calvinists were unusual. Friendships between Jews and Christians of any sort were virtually unheard of. Verzuiling was the main reason why so few Jews were able to hide from the Germans for any length of time once the roundups and deportations began. Most had no one to turn to for help.