Family Remains
ON THE OCCASION of my father’s seventy-fifth birthday, one of my father’s cousins, whom I’d never met, paid a visit from Amsterdam. She was a vivacious, enthusiastic woman named Suzy Rottenberg-Glaser, my father’s youngest cousin, and the only one in the family—the surviving family—to have kept in touch with him. I’m not sure why she was the exception, but it probably had to do with the fact that she simply showed up when she felt like it, on special occasions such as this. After the party she invited me to visit when I got the chance, and a few weeks later, spurred by my curiosity, I went to see her in Amsterdam.
Suzy was happy I’d come, welcomed me warmly, and after conversing over tea for a half hour, she told me her story. She was the sole survivor from her family and had managed two narrow escapes. On the first occasion she climbed over a high wall surrounding the Jewish orphanage where she worked, before the Germans stormed through the front. She was the only one who managed to escape. The second time, one of the women with whom she was in hiding pretended to have scarlet fever during a house search. The Germans turned on their heels and left. “They were always afraid of catching one or another infectious disease,” she said with a smile. “I wasn’t able to say what I’m telling you for a long time. It took many years and professional help before I was finally able to talk about it,” she said as her smile faded. “It’s easier with you than with my own children. I can’t get them to talk about it.”
As the afternoon wore on, she told me other stories: about her mother and her brother, both betrayed and murdered in Auschwitz; about her husband, who managed to escape on foot and finally reached England after a year on the road; and of course about Aunt Rosie.
Rosie was her older cousin by eleven years. They had no contact with one another before the war because of their age difference, though she admired Rosie from afar. Her mother was less smitten. “If we saw Rosie during one of our walks, my mother made me look the other way. My mother was terribly straight-laced, and she didn’t think that Rosie’s head-turning good looks were appropriate for a young girl to see.
“After the war we established a good relationship. Not immediately after the war, but a couple of years later.” Rosie visited her in Amsterdam, and Suzy visited Stockholm. “The things Rosie went through, it’s enough to make your hair stand on end,” she said. When I questioned her further she wouldn’t say any more.
Later in the evening she relented. “Rosie was betrayed by her own husband, imprisoned in several concentration camps, and experienced the unspeakable. A friend who survived Auschwitz told me shortly after the war that she had met Rosie in the camp and that Rosie was sleeping with an SS officer at the time.” She paused. “But who am I to judge. Rosie survived in that hell and that’s all that matters.”
“Two people I met shortly after the war who had returned from Auschwitz asked if I was Rosie’s relative, since we shared the same surname. ‘Rosie,’ they said, ‘the one who slept with the German officer.’ I said we weren’t family, despite the surname.” Suzy continued, “Shortly after the war everything was still black and white, and if you had cooperated with the Germans it was wrong. Going to bed with a German was certainly wrong. But you had to know what it was really like in a concentration camp. If you wanted to survive you needed more than a little luck. You had to lie, steal, and cheat, most of the time at the cost of the other prisoners. If you stole someone’s bread, you survived, the other died. If you pretended to be a professional, you got the chance to work for the war industry, and those who didn’t were gassed. Anne Frank might have survived were it not for the fact that a fellow prisoner stole her bread a few days before the liberation of the camp. That was the raw truth.”
I was familiar with Holocaust stories from history books, commemoration days, and documentaries, of course, but they tended to be distant and abstract. Now, as I heard about my family’s first- and secondhand experiences, about impossible dilemmas, about cowardice, injustice, tragedy, courage, betrayal, and murder, my perception changed. These stories touched me, confused me, and I was ashamed of my earlier indifference.
Two things in particular stood out to me in Suzy’s recollections. “Not a single government was willing to help; no one was interested. Not only the Dutch, but the British, the Americans, and the French, the so-called Allies, failed to intervene. We were completely alone. The Allies knew about the gas chambers in Auschwitz. They flew low over them, bombed half of Germany, but not the gas chambers, despite repeated requests. The Americans and the English were both guilty of turning back ships full of Jewish refugees. Only a few individuals provided concrete help.” When I asked why so few survivors retaliated against those who had betrayed them, people who often lived only a block away, she explained, “After the war we were so exhausted we didn’t have the energy to do anything. Liberation was double-edged. We were happy, of course, that the Germans were gone, but then we were faced with uncertainty about which family members would return, and the sadness for those who did not return. There was no room in the Netherlands for that grief.” She continued, “Max Tailleur, a Jewish comedian popular in the Netherlands, said shortly after the war, ‘I laugh to keep from crying.’ ”
After almost two hours of conversation we said good-bye. As I left she invited me to celebrate her next birthday with her, this time a special anniversary. She was organizing a party in the Apollo Hotel, and her family would all be there. “It’s your chance to meet them,” she added. I promised to think about it.
On the way home, stuck in a traffic jam, I thought over our conversation. I had always thought there had been much resistance during the war, that the Dutch government had done as much as possible for its oppressed citizens, and that the sense of solidarity had been strong and palpable. The Germans had arrested many Jewish citizens, but their fellow countrymen had been unable to do anything about it. At least that was what I had always been told, what I had learned at school. But the story of my father’s cousin, the story of Aunt Rosie and my other relatives, was entirely different. Ruthless manhunts were organized, and Jewish game was hunted down without mercy, driven from its hollows and smoked out by Dutch policemen, Dutch civil servants, Dutch mayors, Dutch SS officers, Dutch bounty hunters and traitors. They were so effective that the Germans only had to round it up and dispose of it. Many of my fellow citizens participated and profited. There was more betrayal than resistance.
I was tired when I arrived home. Still intrigued by Suzy’s stories a few days later, I decided to go to her birthday party after all. I wanted to know what my family, albeit distant, looked like and to see them interact. Perhaps I’d learn more about Aunt Rosie and my father.
When I arrived at the party Suzy introduced me to some friends and family members, among them her children and her younger nieces and nephews. It was clear that they all knew one another. They talked incessantly. A few older people were gathered at a table. One of them, a first cousin of both Suzy and my father, was an elderly gentleman named Richard, who asked after my father. Without talking about the war I could see that it had left its traces. He mentioned the names of family members who didn’t survive in a calm, measured tone. He knew Rosie and described her as beautiful and unconventional. “Rosie was extremely enterprising, independent, had a way with words. She did whatever she wanted, and she was our prettiest cousin.”
Another elderly man told me he couldn’t talk about the events of the war with his children because they didn’t want to know about it. Absolutely nothing. “It confuses and saddens me, because it’s something they ought to know, and I don’t have a lot of time left,” he said. “I understand how they feel to a certain extent. They’re busy and have other concerns, but at the same time I refuse to accept that you can’t share important facts and feelings within your own family. It’s important. I know what happens if you don’t talk about it. Before you know it, it leaves a cavity. I couldn’t talk about it myself for years, but things changed after therapy and I want to tell my children about it, come what may.” I was struck by the contrast: his children didn’t want to know, and my father refused to tell.
The guests of my own generation were different. They showed none of the enthusiasm that René exhibited upon meeting me in Brussels, almost the opposite in fact. I’m usually pretty good at striking up conversations with strangers, but that night I made little headway. I realized that the Holocaust was still a heavy burden on both the survivors and their children, despite the fact that the past was receding. Standing alone with one of my relatives, I asked if he ever talked with his parents about the war. He said he didn’t. A couple of his friends did, but one became suicidal and the other was left with a nervous tic, in spite of psychiatric help. “I will not take that risk. I want a normal life, and the past has to remain outside it,” he whispered resolutely. The exception was a young woman who talked enthusiastically about her work on an ambitious film project by Steven Spielberg. I only learned later in the conversation that she was filming the testimonies of the last survivors of the Holocaust. I’d never heard of such a project before and was surprised by it.
Whatever their views on the past, the people at the party were my family, or what was left of it. A great-aunt, a couple of great-uncles, a few second cousins, and a lack of communication between generations. These were the remains of my family, distant and close at the same time.