13 June 1945
At the station city officials took our names and asked where we wanted to go. We had no family in Holland so we felt we should contact friends who might give us shelter for the night until we got our bearings. We thought of Martin and Rosi Rosenbaum. Although he was Jewish, since she was an Austrian Christian it was just possible they were still living in Amsterdam. We were given money for a taxi fare to their home.
Martin opened the door and recognized us immediately.
‘Fritzi Geiringer!’ he beamed, embracing first Mutti and then me.
He welcomed us in and said of course we could stay. Then he told us the most extraordinary news. Rosi had just given birth to a son. Who could have imagined it? That seemed to me the greatest miracle of all. Against all the odds, and amid the deprivations and agony of war, a new life had been created. The baby was just three days old and mother and child were still in hospital.
We visited her that evening. Rosi was very proud of her son and as amazed at his birth as we were, but she was not feeling very well. She agreed with Martin that Mutti should stay and help look after her and the baby when they came home.
It was a time of austerity. The trees in the streets had been chopped down for fuel and many wooden doors were missing. There was no gas supply so we could not use the cooker and had to find fuel for the small woodburning stove. There was precious little to eat. We decided to contact the Reitsmas who had the keys to the secret store of food we had built up before we went into hiding.
They were overjoyed to see us again. Like Martin and Rosi they had not been deported by the Germans and had survived the hardships of the war. Our secret store of food had saved them in times of near starvation but now unfortunately there was nothing left. Their son, Floris, had remained in hiding throughout the occupation and had now enrolled at the University of Amsterdam. Both of them looked elderly and frail but Mrs Reitsma was excited because she had just been commissioned by the Dutch government to design the postage stamps to commemorate the liberation. She showed us the copper etchings she was working on and promised to give me art lessons when we were settled again.
The day after Rosi returned home with her baby, I heard a knock at the front door and found Otto Frank standing there. His grey suit hung loose on his tall, thin frame, but he looked calm and distinguished.
‘We have a visitor,’ I said as I took him in to see Mutti.
He held out his hand to be introduced to Mutti.
‘But we’ve met already,’ she said. ‘On the way to Czernowitz.’
He shook his head. His brown eyes were deep-set and sad.
‘I don’t remember,’ he said. ‘I have your address from the list of survivors. I am trying to trace what has happened to Margot and Anne.’
He was desolated that he had not yet found them but he sat and spoke to Mutti for a long time, building up her confidence. She told him she was anxious about Heinz and Pappy and that she was trying to get our apartment back. Other tenants were living in 46 Merwedeplein but it was still leased in the name of a non-Jewish friend. He said he was staying with Miep Gies and her husband – who had helped to hide the Franks during the war – near the Merwedeplein and would be happy to help in any way if we needed him.
We remained with the Rosenbaums until early July before we could regain possession of our flat. It felt so eerie to walk up the stairs. Inside it was as if the intervening years had not taken place. It was like stepping back in time – everything looked exactly the same. I wandered in and out of the rooms. Our furniture was in the same place, the curtaining and paintwork was unchanged, and when I looked for the spot on my bedroom wall where Pappy had marked my height it was still there.
I went to the window and looked down into the square. Some children were playing at one end on the tarmac. Later I heard a taxi draw up in the street below and ran to open the door thinking, That’s Pappy coming home with Heinz. But it was only a neighbour from across the hall.
Otto Frank visited us from time to time. Mutti was concerned about what to do with me. Should I go to school again or learn a profession? He advised her strongly to send me back to finish my studies at school.
The nightmares started at the end of July. I would wake up screaming. Once I woke up to see Mutti standing by my bed in her dressing gown holding a glass of water for me.
‘I can’t sleep, Mutti,’ I said.
‘I understand,’ she said, handing me the glass and sitting on my bed.
‘When will Pappy come home?’ I asked.
‘Tomorrow maybe,’ she said, stroking my hair and kissing my forehead. Then she tucked me in under my precious quilt and waited on Heinz’s bed until I fell asleep.