The Rembrandt Affair ga-10 Page 7

  Shortly after Rembrandt's death, a number of large synagogues were constructed near the opposite end of Jodenbreestraat around the Visserplein and Meijerplein. The redbrick buildings somehow managed to survive the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, though most of the people who prayed there did not. Nestled within a complex of four old Ashkenazi synagogues is the primary keeper of this terrible memory, the Jewish Historical Museum. After passing through the magnetometer at the front entrance, Gabriel asked for the research facility and was directed to the lowest level. It was a modern space, clean and brightly lit, with long worktables and an internal spiral staircase leading to the upper stacks. Given the lateness of the hour, it was empty except for a single archivist, a tall man in his early forties with reddish blond hair.

  Without going into specifics, Gabriel said he was looking for information about a man named Jacob Herzfeld. The archivist asked for the correct spelling, then walked over to a computer terminal. A click of the mouse brought up a page for a database search engine. He entered Herzfeld's first and last name and clicked again.

  "This could be him. Jacob Herzfeld, born in Amsterdam in March 1896, died at Auschwitz in March 1943. His wife and daughter were murdered at the same time. The child was only nine years old." The archivist glanced over his shoulder at Gabriel. "They must have been rather well-to-do. They lived at a good address on Plantage Middenlaan. It's quite close to here, just on the other side of Wertheim Park."

  "Is there a way to tell if any members of the family survived?"

  "Not using this database, but let me check our files."

  The archivist disappeared through a doorway. Chiara roamed the stacks while Gabriel sat down at the computer and scrolled through the names of the dead. Salomon Wass, born in Amsterdam, 31 May 1932, murdered at Sobibor, 14 May 1943...Alida Spier, born Rotterdam, 20 September 1915, murdered at Auschwitz, 30 September 1942...Sara da Silva Rosa, born Amsterdam, 8 April 1930, murdered at Auschwitz, 15 October 1942...They were but three of the 110,000 Dutch Jews who had been sealed into freight cars and dispatched eastward for murder and cremation. Only one-fifth of Holland's Jews survived the war, the lowest percentage of any Western country occupied by the Germans. Several factors contributed to the lethality of the Holocaust in Holland, not least of which was the enthusiastic support given the project by many elements of Dutch society. Indeed, from the Dutch police officers who arrested Jews to the Dutch rail workers who transported them to their deaths, Dutch citizens were active at nearly every stage of the process. Adolf Eichmann, the managing director of the Final Solution, would later say of his local helpers, "It was a pleasure to work with them."

  The archivist reappeared, holding a single sheet of paper. "I thought I recognized the name and address. There was another child who survived. But I don't think she'll talk."

  "Why not?" Gabriel asked.

  "We have an annual conference here in Amsterdam that focuses on the children who were hidden during the Holocaust. Last year, I handled the registration." He held up the sheet of paper. "Lena Herzfeld attended the first session but left almost immediately."

  "What happened?"

  "When we asked her to write down her memories of the war for our archives, she became very agitated and angry. She said it had been a mistake to come. After that, we never saw her again."

  "A reaction like that isn't uncommon," Gabriel said. "It took years for some survivors to talk about their experiences. And some never have."

  "That's true," the archivist agreed. "But the hidden children are among the least understood victims of the Holocaust. Their experience has its own special tragedy. In most cases, they were handed over to complete strangers. Their parents were simply trying to save them, but what child can truly comprehend being left behind?"

  "I understand," said Gabriel. "But it's important that I see her."

  The archivist searched Gabriel's face and seemed to recognize something he had seen before. Then he smiled sadly and handed over the slip of paper.

  "Don't tell her where you got the address. And be sure to treat her gently. She's fragile. They're all a bit fragile."

  16

  AMSTERDAM

  The archivist told Gabriel and Chiara everything else he knew. Lena Herzfeld had worked as a teacher in the Dutch state school system, had never married, and, as it turned out, lived just around the corner from her old family home. It was a small street with a leafy green park on one side and a terrace of gabled houses on the other. Hers was a narrow little house with a narrow black door at street level. Gabriel reached for the bell but hesitated. She became very agitated and angry...After that, we never saw her again. Perhaps it was better to leave her undisturbed, he thought. He knew from personal experience that coaxing memory from a survivor could be a bit like crossing a frozen lake. One wrong step and the entire surface could crack with disastrous results.

  "What's wrong?" Chiara asked.

  "I don't want to put her through it. Besides, she probably doesn't remember."

  "She was nine when the Germans came. She remembers."

  Gabriel made no movement. Chiara pressed the bell for him.

  "Why did you do that?"

  "She came to that conference for a reason. She wants to talk."

  "Then why did she get so upset when they asked her about the war?"

  "They probably didn't ask her the right way."

  "And you think I can?"

  "I know you can."

  Chiara reached for the bell again but stopped at the sound of footfalls in the entrance hall. An exterior light came on, and the door retreated a few inches, revealing a small, spare woman dressed entirely in black. Her pewter-colored hair was carefully brushed, and her blue eyes appeared clear and alert. She regarded the two visitors curiously, then, sensing they were not Dutch, addressed them in flawless English.

  "May I help you?"

  "We're looking for Lena Herzfeld," said Gabriel.

  "I'm Lena Herzfeld," she replied calmly.

  "We were wondering whether we might speak with you."

  "About?"

  "Your father." Gabriel paused, then added, "And about the war."

  She was silent for a moment. "My father has been dead for more than sixty years," she said firmly. "As for the war, there is nothing to discuss."

  Gabriel shot a glance at Chiara, who ignored him and quietly asked, "Will you tell us about the painting, then?"

  Lena Herzfeld seemed startled but quickly regained her composure. "What painting is that?"

  "The Rembrandt your father owned before the war."

  "I'm afraid you have me confused with someone else. My father never owned a Rembrandt."

  "But that's not true," Gabriel interjected. "Your father did indeed own a Rembrandt. He purchased it from De Vries Fine Arts on the Herengracht in 1936. I have a copy of the bill of sale if you would like to see it."

  "I have no wish to see it. Now if you'll excuse me, I—"

  "Then will you at least have a look at this?"

  Without waiting for an answer, Gabriel pressed a photograph of the painting into her hands. For several seconds, Lena Herzfeld's face betrayed no emotion other than mild curiosity. Then, bit by bit, the ice began to crack, and tears spilled down both cheeks.

  "Do you remember it now, Miss Herzfeld?"

  "It's been a very long time, but, yes, I remember." She brushed a tear from her cheek. "Where did you get this?"

  "Perhaps it would be better if we spoke inside."

  "How did you find me?" she asked fearfully, her gaze still fixed on the photograph. "Who betrayed me?"

  Gabriel felt as if a stone had been laid over his heart.

  "No one betrayed you, Miss Herzfeld," he said softly. "We're friends. You can trust us."

  "I learned when I was a child to trust no one." She looked up from the photograph. "What do you want from me?"

  "Only your memory."

  "It was a long time ago."

  "Someone died because of this painting, Miss Herzfe
ld."

  "Yes," she said. "I know."

  She returned the photograph to Gabriel's hand. For an instant, he feared he had pushed too far. Then the door opened a few inches wider and Lena Herzfeld stepped to one side.

  Treat her gently, Gabriel reminded himself. She's fragile. They're all a bit fragile.

  17

  AMSTERDAM

  Gabriel knew the instant he entered Lena Herzfeld's house that she was suffering from a kind of madness. It was neat, orderly, and sterile, but a madness nonetheless. The first evidence of her disorder was the condition of her sitting room. Like most Dutch parlors, it had the compactness of a Vermeer. Yet through her industrious arrangement of the furnishings and careful choice of color—a glaring, clinical white—she had managed to avoid the impression of clutter or claustrophobia. There were no pieces of decorative glass, no bowls of hard candy, no mementos, and not a single photograph. It was as if Lena Herzfeld had been dropped into this place alone, without parentage, without ancestry, without a past. Her home was not truly a home, thought Gabriel, but a hospital ward into which she had checked herself for a permanent stay.

  She insisted on making tea. It came, not surprisingly, in a white pot and was served in white cups. She insisted, too, that Gabriel and Chiara refer to her only as Lena. She explained that she had worked as a teacher at a state school and for thirty-seven years had been called only Miss Herzfeld by students and colleagues alike. Upon retirement, she had discovered that she wanted her given name back. Gabriel acceded to her wishes, though from time to time, out of courtesy or deference, he sought refuge behind the formality of her family name. When it came to identifying himself and the attractive young woman at his side, he decided it was not possible to reciprocate Lena Herzfeld's intimacy. And so he plucked an old alias from his pocket and concocted a hasty cover to go with it. Tonight he was Gideon Argov, employee of a small, privately funded organization that carried out investigations of financial and other property-related questions arising from the Holocaust. Given the sensitive nature of these investigations, and the security problems arising from them, it was not possible to go into greater detail.

  "You're from Israel, Mr. Argov?"

  "I was born there. I live mainly in Europe now."

  "Where in Europe, Mr. Argov?"

  "Given the nature of my work, my home is a suitcase."

  "And your assistant?"

  "We spend so much time together her husband is convinced we're lovers."

  "Are you?"

  "Lovers? No such luck, Miss Herzfeld."

  "It's Lena, Mr. Argov. Please call me Lena."

  The secrets of survivors are not easily surrendered. They are locked away behind barricaded doors and accessed at great risk to those who possess them. It meant the evening's proceedings would be an interrogation of sorts. Gabriel knew from experience that the surest route to failure was the application of too much pressure. He began with what appeared to be an offhand remark about how much the city had changed since his last visit. Lena Herzfeld responded by telling him about Amsterdam before the war.

  Her ancestors had come to the Netherlands in the middle of the seventeenth century to escape the murderous pogroms being carried out by Cossacks in eastern Poland. While it was true that Holland was generally tolerant of the new arrivals, Jews were excluded from most segments of the Dutch economy and forced to become traders and merchants. The majority of Amsterdam's Jews were lower middle class and quite poor. The Herzfelds worked as peddlers and shopkeepers until the late nineteenth century, when Abraham Herzfeld entered the diamond trade. He passed the business on to his son, Jacob, who undertook a rapid and highly successful expansion. Jacob married a woman named Susannah Arons in 1927 and moved from a cramped apartment off the Jodenbreestraat to the grand house on Plantage Middenlaan. Four years later, Susannah gave birth to the couple's first child, Lena. Two years after that came another daughter, Rachel.

  "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 b
y 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."