Authors: Michael Dean
‘What, on a lovely day like this, Uncle Max? All this fresh air around us. The sun shining …’ Manny indicated the sun, shooting his left arm skyward, in case his uncle had any doubt as to its location.
And then Hirschfeld saw the wares on Manny’s stall: A couple of carbide lamps, a little machine for grinding seeds into cooking oil, aluminium pans – lots of them. As Hirschfeld knew only too well, all this was made illicitly from metal stolen from the shipyard. This economic sabotage was putting work behind schedule, not by days but by weeks.
‘Have you gone stark staring mad?’ Hirschfeld addressed his beaming nephew.
It could only be a matter of time before he was caught. And then, even an uncle who had the ear of the Occupying Authority would not be enough to save him. He would be on the next labour transit to work in a German factory.
Young Manny did a jig on the spot; waving his hands in the air, shaking his head so his stiff, curly hair danced in syncopation. His spectacles nearly fell off. Hirschfeld suspected, not for the first time, that the youth was deranged.
‘Go to hell, Uncle Max,’ the boy said, conversationally.
Manny turned away from him, and began calling out his wares. As Hirschfeld watched, two burly German soldiers in field-grey, presumably
Wehrmacht
on leave, stopped and began to examine a frying pan. Manny shot a stream of broken Jewish Dutch at them, interspersed with gibberish and a smattering of the few Hebrew words he knew. It was something like ‘You lumps could fry up your dinner-winner in this pan, while you rape our fuckocking country.’
The soldiers looked at each other. One of them held up a pan, pointed to it and asked Manny the price, in exaggeratedly slow, Bavarian-accented German. Hirschfeld’s nephew, whose German was excellent, looked goggle-eyed and slack-jawed in stupid incomprehension.
He then launched into a mime show, consisting partly of the palms-out, shrugging shoulder gesture beloved of Nazi stereotypes of Jews. He topped this off by rubbing thumb and fingers together – meaning ‘money’ - in another Jew-hatred stereotype.
Hirschfeld
felt sick.
The two soldiers started laughing. They conversed in Bavarian dialect, imagining nobody could understand them. Hirschfeld could.
‘How much?’ one of them said, again, taking out his purse and miming paying.
Manny held up a hand with two digits splayed. ‘Two guilders for a set of five,’ he said in decently clear Dutch.
The soldier nodded, handed over two guilders and helped himself to a set of pans. Manny gave an idiotic smile and mumbled ‘Thank you merry much, ye
Moffen
.’ Hirschfeld went white.
Moffen
was the insulting Dutch term for the Germans. It was a word German soldiers were likely to know; at least, the ones based in Amsterdam would. But these two went off happily enough, with their pans.
As the German soldiers walked away, Hirschfeld considered trying to reason with Manny, but reasoning with Manny was like filling a bath with water when the plug was out. And anyway this was not the place to do it. His nephew was due at his home, to share the sabbath meal with himself and Else. Hirschfeld resolved to have it out with him then.
The Secretary General walked on, past the Kattenburg Raincoat Factory, which flanked the market. His mood improved when he reached the Tip Top theatre, at the market’s far end. He began to hum a ditty from a Tip Top show
Had
-
je
-
me
-
maar
- If You Could Only Catch Me:
If
you
could
only
catch
me
,
with
a
two
guilder
bribe
,
If
you
could
only
catch
me
With
a
little
coaxing
on
the
side
.
Hirschfeld loved variety-theatre, and the cinema; he and his sister went to one or the other once a week. He could practically taste the
gesause
mangelen
- the roasted peanuts - they sold at the Tip Top.
He looked back at the market, in the distance; all that energy, all that teeming life. It would be gone, forever, by the end of the week – obliterated - if he wasn’t clever enough at this meeting with Rost van Tonningen and Rauter. The market and the market traders – their lives depended on him.
2
Behind his thick spectacles, Emmanuel Roet’s tiny eyes were like two burnt currants at the bottom of a jar. Just as his face creased into its characteristic frown, at the sight of his Uncle Max, he caught sight of Ben Bril and Joel Cosman. The crowd parted for them, like Moses and Aaron leading the way through the Red Sea.
They were stars in Amsterdam’s Jewish firmament – Ben Bril, who boxed with a Star of David on his shorts, and Joel Cosman, who had just broken into the Ajax first team. Peering short-sightedly through the crowd, Manny watched as Ben and Joel bullied two NSBers. And then his Uncle Max popped up and spoiled all the fun.
As the two Jewish toughs stopped in front of his stall, Manny gazed raptly at them. He wanted to be like them, not like himself. He wanted to be tough, and to hell with being clever. The Nazis had closed down his university, hadn’t they? He had been lucky to get a twenty-two guilders a week job in the shipyard. And if Tinie hadn’t found him a room near hers, in Batavia Straat, he’d have been back with his Uncle Max and his mother.
‘
Dag
,
Manny
!’ The easy greeting was from Joel, the bigger one, the leader.
‘
Dag
,
Manny
!’ Ben Bril was Old Mother Bril, the peddler’s, son.
‘
Dag
Joel
!
Dag
Ben
! I saw you torment those NSBers, you boys.’
Joel smiled. He was easy-going, chummy, less intense than Ben. ‘Funnily enough, Manny-boy, we’re just on the way to give them a right pasting.’ He smiled at Ben. ‘Us and a few friends.’
‘What, you mean …’
‘The WA have been coming into the market. Beating up Jews. We’re on our way to teach them a lesson.’
‘Can I come?’
‘Manny-boy, we’re gonna beat the shit out of them, not draw them.’
Manny was a talented painter. He laughed at the gentle jibe. ‘I want to fight with you.’
They both looked sceptical – especially Ben Bril. But Manny knew who would make the decision. His currant eyes grew blacker, staring at Joel Cosman.
‘I need this, Joel. I’ll fight with every ounce of my strength. I won’t be a liability, I swear it. If I am, leave me where I fall.’
Joel was hesitating, his hawk-like face sharpening with doubt.
‘Joel, please. I am Dutch! I am Dutch!’
Joel laughed. ‘OK, Manny-boy. You’re in. Get someone to cover the stall’
But Emmanuel Roet was already tearing off his costermonger’s apron, and handing it to Manus Fransman, the herring seller. .
*
De
Jonge
Bokser
was a Jewish boxing club in a room behind the
Café
De
Kroon
, on
Rapenburger
Straat. It stank of turpentine oil, leather and sweat. There was a single, battered punch bag hanging from a butcher’s hook in one corner.
In the middle of the room, on the floor, were posts on bases and ropes which could be assembled to make a boxing ring. Round the walls, there was a thick cluster of photographs of Jewish boxers, some in singlets, some just in shorts and plimsolls. They were mostly in groups, but some stars, like Ben Bril, were pictured alone, with gloves raised.
Ben had boxed for the Netherlands, when the Olympics were held in Amsterdam. He was just sixteen. Rumour was, if the Dutch Boxing Federation had found out how young he was, he would have been disqualified.
Seeing Manny looking at the photographs and devouring every word of the captions, Joel slipped an easy arm round his shoulders:
‘One year, this club had all the champions of Holland in all the weight classes,’ he said: ‘In the flyweight class, Folie Brander; in the bantam class, Nathan Cohen; in featherweight, Japie Casseres; lightweight, Appie de Vries; welterweight, Ben Bril; middleweight, Sam Roeg; and in the heavyweight class, Japp Barber.’
‘That’s fantastic!’
‘So it is, Manny-boy! So it is.’
‘I read somewhere that … studying Talmud helps with boxing. I mean …Jews have quick reactions because the Talmud teaches us to be resourceful and … and precise.’
Joel looked solemn. ‘Maybe there’s something in that, Manny-boy. And then again, maybe there isn’t.’ Without realising it Joel had dropped into the nasal accent the Amsterdam Jews used to identify themselves as Jewish, even without using Jewish Dutch. Manny beamed at him.
Joel looked round the room, appraising. There were fourteen or fifteen of the Jewish boxers, most of them getting restive.
‘We gonna use weapons?’ Lard Zilverberg , a massive fellow at the back of the crowd, asked. Manny knew he meant staves and wooden palings.
Joel shook his head. ‘Sticks would just get in the way. And we could be spotted on the way there. We’ll just use our fists.’
This drew a murmur of approval. It was cut short by a thunderous banging both on the window and the locked door. Joel wheeled round. Manny and everyone else in the room feared the same thing. Had the WA got wind of the attack and ambushed first? Or it could be the Amsterdam police. It could even be the
Orpos
. And they would be armed. Worst of all, it could be the German Security Police -
Sipo
/SD.
‘Open up!’ The cry was in Dutch, but not Jewish Dutch.
‘I’ll go,’ Joel Cosman said. He walked to the door, unlocked it and pulled it open. Three toughs in workers’ clothes swaggered in.
‘Hello Joel,’ said the first one. He looked arrogantly round the boxing club, then called over his shoulder to the other two. ‘Hey, look, fellas! Jews! Never seen so many
Mozes
in one place!’
‘Gerrit Romijn!’
The Jewish boxers behind Joel Cosman relaxed. Some dropped their raised fists.
Manny knew Gerrit, too. At least he knew who he was.
The Jewish Seminary was a few doors further along Rapenburger Straat from the boxing club. There, the Jewish boys learned Talmud and studied for their barmitzvah. Abraham Katz trained the synagogue choir there. In the evening, as the Jews came out, the Catholic toughs, who mainly lived in the poor area around Folie Straat, were waiting for them.
The two sides fought on the Rapenburg – the bridge over the canal. They were armed with heavy pieces of wood, stolen from the lumber yards on Joden Houttuinen. Gerrit Romijn led the Christian boys; Joel Cosman led the Jews.
Manny always knew when one of these rumbles was taking place - everyone did. He avoided them, making a huge detour round Wertheim Park, on his way home, to keep out of the way.
Occasionally, a bunch of Catholics would taunt him: ‘
Hey
!
Brilejood
!’ - Jew with glasses. But if you didn’t want to fight, you could keep out of it. Sometimes the Jews won these fights, sometimes the Catholics did. Manny didn’t take much notice.
‘Gerrit, we’re in a hurry,’ Joel Cosman said. ‘Some other time, maybe. Bring your girlfriend, huh? I’ll give her a fuck with my circumcised
schwanz
. The other boys here tell me she likes that. The groove makes her wriggle about.’
The Jewish boxers gave that a laugh; Gerrit and his followers joined in. ‘We know where you’re off to, Joel. You Yids talk so loudly, half Amsterdam knows. We’re coming with you. There’s more of us on the way.’
Joel was silent for a moment. ‘Why?’
‘Why?’ Gerrit looked round at his followers. ‘
Why
? … Because, Joel, you’re
our
fucking Jews. That’s why. We’ll fucking beat you up. And we don’t like it when Nazis, or their monkeys in the WA, try and do it for us.’
Ben Bril and a couple of the other Jews clenched their fists at this, but Joel and most of the rest of them laughed. Manny’s laughter was among the loudest.
*
Joel Cosman’s
knokploeg
- resistance group - filed silently out of
De
Jonge
Bokser
, with Manny keeping close to Joel. They were immediately joined by two more of Gerrit Romijn’s Catholics. More slipped into the file as they made their way along Rapenburger Straat, then past the imposing Portuguese Synagogue on Jonas Daniel Meyer Plein, to the head of the Blaauw Brug. It was this bridge that linked the Waterloo Plein Market, along with the rest of the Jewish Quarter, to the parts of Amsterdam west of the Amstel River.
‘Tell us where you want us to go, Joel,’ Gerrit Romijn murmured, putting his gang under Cosman’s command.
Joel shot him a grateful look. He waved his ecumenical
knokploeg
into portals and down alleyways, right at the top of Nieue Amstel Straat, where it meets the bridge.
They’d
had word the WA were coming into the Jewish Quarter that morning, but were not sure what time. They were also not sure how many.
When he saw them, even Joel whistled. Previous WA incursions into the Waterloo Plein Market, and the other Jewish market at Uilenburg, had been by a
kringen
– a circle of five or six of their thugs - armed with clubs or iron bars. They picked on isolated Jewish traders and beat them up.
This was very different. There was a block of maybe fifty black-uniformed
Weer
Afdeling
, marching in formation across the Blaauw Brug, some carrying staves and iron bars over their shoulders. They were chanting one of their marching songs –
Juden
an
der
Wand
, Jews to the Wall. A few of them had brass knuckles around their clenched fists.
Manny looked at Joel Cosman, who was in the same doorway, along with two others. Joel tensed. He timed his call just right:
About half the WA block were still on the bridge when the first of them drew level with the first of the doorways on Nieue Amstel Straat. At Joel’s roared command of ‘Now!
Now!
Now!’ the
knokploeg
and the Catholics flew at the bunched WA-men, and laid into them.
Manny ran as fast as he could at a WA-man one and a half times his size. He shoulder-charged him off balance, flailing at him, windmilling with both fists, thrilled he was making contact. All around him, the WA were getting the worst of it. Manny glimpsed Ben Bril, no doubt happy to be free of the Queensberry Rules, kicking a WA-man in the knee, before delivering a crisp uppercut that sent him down to the pavement.
Gerrit Romijn and Joel Cosman were fighting back to back. The WA-men hardly had room to use their staves; quite a few of them, especially the ones on the bridge, turned and ran. Manny felt himself being spun round and saw the sneering, narrow face of a WA-man, who hit him in the mouth. Manny went down.
What really hurt was scraping his face on the grit of the road. His spectacles fell off; he scrambled to retrieve them. The WA-man stood over him, aiming a kick, but Manny rolled away. Somebody, Manny thought it was the huge Lard Zilverberg, turned his assailant round and thumped him in the bread-basket, doubling him over.
Manny sat up in the road, feeling woozy, tasting his blood as it trickled into his mouth. Quite a few of the WA were lying unconscious on the ground. Others were kneeling, or leaning against the walls of buildings, moaning. There was the sound of gunshots. He saw a green-uniformed German
Orpo
firing into the air. Where had they come from? Everybody - WA and the
knokploeg
- started to run for it.
Manny caught sight of another
Orpo
He was carefully aiming his pistol at one of the fleeing Jews. Joel Cosman appeared from nowhere and hit the
Mof
on the point of his jaw. He went down as if poleaxed, hitting his head a crack on the kerb. Joel bent over the fresh-faced German. Manny joined him, kneeling down, to see if he could help.
There was a trickle of dark blood coming from the back of the Orpo’s head, and another down his nose. He was obviously dead.
*
The
knokploeg
scattered. Manny headed back to his room in Batavia Straat, but at the last moment, he knocked on Tinie’s door, instead.
Tinie had been a motherly little soul, even at the age of eight, in first class at
cheder
– Hebrew classes. At that age, they kept the girls in with the boys. As she grew older, became more womanly, it seemed to Manny that she grew warier – more careful of giving from her full heart. But underneath, he thought, she was just the same - overflowing with tenderness.
Nothing happened when he rapped on her door. He was keenly disappointed. He listened at the door, in case his Uncle Max was there.
Tinie’s father, Simon Emmerik, had been a clerk in the Department of Trade and Industry – Hirschfeld’s department. He had been dismissed after the Nazi
Ariërverklaring
had first identified all the Jews in the civil service, then cleared them out. Simon Emmerik had no access to his savings - all Jewish bank accounts were frozen. The Emmerik family were near destitute, hungry.