Daniel Silva - The Rembrandt Affair

"But that wasn't true of my father. Before the war, he made a number of friends outside the Jewish community through his business dealings. There was one man in particular, a Roman Catholic gentleman named Nikolaas de Graaf. He lived with his wife and four children in a house near the Vondelpark. I assume my father paid him a substantial amount of money, but neither of them spoke of such things. We entered the de Graaf house shortly before midnight on the ninth of September, one by one, so that the neighbors wouldn't notice us. We were each wearing three sets of clothing because we didn't dare move about the city with suitcases. A hiding place had been prepared for us in the attic. We climbed the ladder and the door was closed. After that...it was permanent night."

The attic had no amenities other than a few old blankets that had been laid upon the floor. Each morning, Mrs. de Graaf provided a basin of fresh water for rudimentary washing. The toilet was one floor below; for reasons of security, the de Graafs requested its use be limited to two visits per family member each day. Talking above a whisper was forbidden, and there was to be no verbal communication whatsoever at night. Clean clothing was provided once a week, and food was limited to whatever the de Graafs could spare from their own rations. The attic had no window. Lights or candles were not permitted, even on Shabbat. Before long, the entire Herzfeld family was suffering from malnutrition and the psychological effects of prolonged exposure to darkness.

"We were white as ghosts and very thin. When Mrs. de Graaf was cooking, the smell would rise up to the attic. After the family had eaten, she would bring us our portion. It was never enough. But, of course, we didn't complain. I always had the impression that Mrs. de Graaf was very frightened about our presence. She barely looked at us, and our trips downstairs made her edgy. For us, they were the only break from the darkness and the silence. We couldn't read because there was no light. We couldn't listen to the radio or speak because noise was forbidden. At night, we listened to the German razzias and trembled with fear."

The Germans did not conduct the raids alone. They were assisted by special units of the Dutch police known as Schalkhaarders and by a German-created force known as the Voluntary Auxiliary Police. Regarded as fanatical Jew hunters who would stop at nothing to fill their nightly quotas, the Auxiliary officers were primarily members of the Dutch SS and Dutch Nazi party. Early in the deportation process, they were paid seven and a half guilders for each Jew they arrested. But as the deportations steadily drained Holland of its Jews and prey became harder to find, the bounty was increased to forty guilders. In a time of war and economic privation, it was a substantial sum of money, one that led many Dutch citizens to supply information about Jews in hiding for a few pieces of silver.

"It was our greatest fear. The fear that we would be betrayed. Not by the de Graafs but by a neighbor or an acquaintance who knew of our presence. My father was most concerned about the de Graaf children. Three were teenagers, but the youngest boy was my age. My father feared the boy might accidentally tell one of his schoolmates. You know how children can be. They say things to impress their friends without fully understanding the consequences."

"Is that what happened?"

"No," she said, shaking her head emphatically. "As it turned out, the de Graaf children never breathed a word about our presence. It was one of the neighbors who did us in. A woman who lived next door."

"She heard you through the attic?"

Lena's eyes rose toward the ceiling, and her gaze grew fearful. "No," she said finally. "She saw me."

"Where?"

"In the garden."

"The garden? What were you doing in the garden, Lena?"

She started to answer, then buried her face in her hands and wept. Gabriel held her tightly, struck by her complete silence. Lena Herzfeld, the child of darkness, the child of the attic, could still cry without making a sound.

What followed was the confession of Lena Herzfeld. Her transgression had started as a minor act of disobedience committed by a desperate child who simply wanted to touch the snow. She had not planned the adventure. In fact, to this day she did not know what woke her in the early-morning hours of February 12, 1943, or what prompted her to rise quietly from her bed and descend the ladder from the attic. She remembered the hall had been in complete darkness. Even so, she had no trouble finding her way to the bathroom. She had taken those same seven steps, twice each day, for the past five months. Those seven steps had constituted her only form of exercise. Her only break from the monotony of the attic. And her only chance to see the outside world.

"There was a window next to the basin. It was small and round and overlooked the rear garden. Mrs. de Graaf insisted the curtain be kept closed whenever we entered."

"But you opened it against her wishes?"

"From time to time." A pause, then, "I was only a child."

"I know, Lena," Gabriel said, his tone forgiving. "Tell me what you saw."

"I saw fresh snow glowing in the moonlight. I saw the stars." She looked at Gabriel. "I'm sure it seems terribly ordinary to you now, but to a child who had been locked in an attic for five months it was..."

"Irresistible?"

"It seemed like heaven. A small corner of heaven, but heaven nonetheless. I wanted to touch the snow. I wanted to see the stars. And part of me wanted to look God directly in the eye and ask Him why He had done this to us."

She scrutinized Gabriel as if calculating whether this stranger who had appeared on her doorstep was truly a worthy recipient of such a memory.

"You were born in Israel?" she asked.

He answered not as Gideon Argov but as himself.

"I was born in an agricultural settlement in the Valley of Jezreel."

"And your parents?"

"My father's family came from Munich. My mother was born in Berlin. She was deported to Auschwitz in 1942. Her parents were gassed upon arrival, but she managed to survive until the end. She was marched out in January 1945."

"The Death March? My God, but she must have been a remarkable woman to survive such an ordeal." She looked at him for a moment, then asked, "What did she tell you?"

"My mother never spoke of it, not even to me."

Lena gave a perceptive nod. Then, after another long pause, she described how she stole silently down the stairs of the de Graaf house and slipped outside into the garden. She was wearing no shoes, and the snow was very cold against her stockinged feet. It didn't matter; it felt wonderful. She grabbed snow by the handful and breathed deeply of the freezing air until her throat began to burn. She spread her arms wide and began to twirl, so that the stars and the sky moved like a kaleidoscope. She twirled and twirled until her head began to spin.

"It was then I noticed the face in the window of the house next door. She looked frightened—truly frightened. I can only imagine how I must have looked to her. Like a pale gray ghost. Like a creature from another world. I obeyed my first instinct, which was to run back inside. But I'm afraid that probably compounded my mistake. If I'd managed to react calmly, it's possible she might have thought I was one of the de Graaf children. But by running, I betrayed myself and the rest of my family. It was like shouting at the top of my lungs that I was a Jew in hiding. I might as well have been wearing my yellow star."

"Did you tell your parents what had happened?"

"I wanted to, but I was too afraid. I just lay on my blanket and waited. After a few hours, Mrs. de Graaf brought us our basin of fresh water, and I knew we had survived the night."