Among the Reeds Page 6

  In the first weeks after the Germans took power in Belgium, tens of thousands of local people, Jews and non-Jews, flocked north to the coast, or west toward the French border. They were trying to escape the German occupation, hoping to either cross into France, which was still free, or else get on a boat for England. Roads were jammed with refugees traveling in every manner imaginable – by foot, by bicycle, by horse-drawn cart, and occasionally by car – as they streamed away from the major urban areas. Families carrying small children and bundles of their most important possessions trudged toward towns like Lille, on the French border. Thousands of terrified refugees clogged the roads, only to be turned away, denied access into France. The refugees had no choice but to turn back and head home. All the while, German planes flew low, dropping bombs on the fleeing civilians, increasing their terror and adding to the mayhem.

  At this point, however, the German soldiers were civil to the locals. They were under instruction to win the local populace over. So young blond German soldiers smilingly told the Belgians to turn around and head home, not to worry. And the Belgians were reassured. Maybe the Nazi occupation wouldn’t be too bad. Sure, the planes were shooting at them, but this was war, and they were on the run. Maybe it would be better to just go home, sit tight and hope for the best.

  Melly, Genek, Bobby, Gertrude, Inge, and Nathan were among the hordes trying to escape Belgium as the Nazis arrived in the spring of 1940. They made it to the French border, but no further. German soldiers stopped them as they tried to cross into France and asked them to return to their home in Antwerp. Although they were rebuffed, there was no trace of the violence or anti-Semitic hostility the family had expected and feared. The German soldiers were polite, affable, even friendly.

  Since the trains were so overcrowded, the majority of the would-be refugees had no way to return to their homes. Many had to walk back the way they had come. But a group of German soldiers took pity on the Offner-Bottner clan, traveling as they were with a newborn baby; they offered them a lift back to Antwerp in the back of a German truck.

  And so the family returned to Antwerp: Gertrude and her two younger children to their flat above the patisserie, and Melly, Genek, and Bobby to their own flat a few blocks away. They resumed the life they had led before the German occupation, running the patisserie and making fur vests and jackets. Everyone hoped the war would be over soon.

  For the Germans, the first order of business was to recruit the support of the local people. So no overt hostilities were instituted in the first few months of occupation. The Nazis had an agenda, of course. But they bided their time, lulling the occupied nation into a false sense of safety before slowly beginning the persecution of the Jews.

  Slowly but steadily, over the first eighteen months after taking power, the Nazis instituted their anti-Jewish measures through a series of ordinances. The plan was undertaken in a chillingly orderly, well thought-out, and systematic way.

  Within months, the anti-Jewish “ordinances” – legal decrees – began. The Nazis first decreed that kosher butchering was illegal, making it very difficult for Jews to eat meat. Other anti-Jewish laws quickly followed, progressively limiting Jews’ rights. It became illegal for Jews to own radios, to own real estate. Next, any business run by Jewish people was required to display a large sign in its window stating “Jewish Enterprise.” Jews’ ID cards were next altered, displaying a red stamp saying “JEW.” After that, Jews were forbidden from owning businesses at all, and were banned from working as teachers, lawyers, doctors, or civil servants. Eventually Jewish children were not allowed to attend school.

  How did the Nazis know who was Jewish?

  The Germans manipulated leaders of the Jewish community into helping them. This is one of the most sinister aspects of Nazi rule, and one they employed effectively throughout the war in all occupied countries. Using both carrots and sticks, and as many falsehoods as it took, the occupiers convinced the Jewish leadership that cooperating with the Nazis would protect their community. The Jewish leaders, hoping to mollify the invaders and to avoid bloodshed, complied.

  In Belgium, the Nazis ordered the Chief Rabbi, Salomon Ullmann, to form the Association des Juifs de Belgique (AJB). The Nazis appointed other Jewish leaders to be the directors of this agency, many against their will. The AJB became a puppet organization, with the Nazi leadership pulling the strings. The Jewish community, seeing that their most trusted leaders were heading this agency, dutifully cooperated with it.

  As soon as it was formed, the Germans ordered the AJB to create a register of all Jews living in Belgium. The Nazis told the AJB that the purpose of this register was “to care for the social and legal needs of the Jewish population.” By complying, the Jewish community inadvertently provided the Nazis with a careful list of Jewish families’ names and addresses. Of course, this register would eventually be used as a ready-made guide to where Jews lived, who was in their household, etc. Because they succeeded in duping the AJB, the Germans had a handy road map when the time eventually came to find and round up Jews for deportation.

  Belgium is composed of two different cultures: the Flemish north and the French south. Antwerp is in the Flemish area and Brussels in the French. Belgium is a tiny country, however, and the two cultures are interwoven and never more than a few miles from each other.

  The predominantly Flemish city of Antwerp was home to a thriving Jewish population. Well over fifty thousand Jews lived in Antwerp at the dawn of the war, many of them non-Belgian Jews who had emigrated ahead of the Nazi occupation. The city had one of the most vibrant Jewish communities in Western Europe. Five synagogues, scores of Jewish schools, multiple Jewish professional organizations, sports clubs, and a thriving Yiddish theater, as well as several Yiddish newspapers, made the city a real center for Jewish culture. And the Jewish population was extremely involved in the diamond business, Antwerp’s best-known industry. So Jews prospered in Antwerp in the 1930s and early 1940s.

  Despite this, a culture of anti-Semitism was deeply rooted in Flemish tradition, and as the Nazi regime instituted anti-Jewish measures they received much more support from the Flemish population than from the French. On April 14, 1941, local pro-Nazi groups in Antwerp staged a pogrom, looting synagogues and burning Jewish businesses. In this city, the German agenda fell on fertile ground. The Germans may have instigated the riots, but the local populace carried out the violence. Antwerp would turn out to be a disaster for the Jewish community. In fact, of the fifty thousand Jews inhabiting Antwerp at the start of the war, only eight hundred of those who stayed in the city would survive.

  In the spring of 1941, in the wake of the “Antwerp Pogrom,” as it became clear that the city was no longer safe for its Jewish inhabitants, many chose to move. Options were limited, but to many it seemed safer to relocate to Brussels, a larger city, predominantly French, and perhaps less anti-Semitic. In a bigger city where they were not known as Jewish, perhaps it would be easier to blend in.

  And staying in Antwerp soon became impossible for Jews anyway. The local police succumbed to pressure from the German occupiers and issued all non-native residents with directives to leave the city. Both Genek and Melly received these orders.

  The Offner-Bottner family was thus evicted from Antwerp. Gertrude abandoned the patisserie, which was almost impossible to run with the anti-Jewish measures in place anyway. Food supplies were dwindling, and Jalonjinsky was barely able to find the flour and butter to bake anymore. Genek and Melly packed up the atelier, gave up their apartment, took one-year-old Bobby, and moved to Brussels as well.

  It was at this time, the spring of 1941, as it became obvious that anti-Jewish discrimination was increasing, that the family started trying to “pass” as non-Jewish. It helped that the names Offner and Bottner were German, and that they all – apart from Genek – spoke the language perfectly. It helped that they were newcomers in Brussels, where no-one knew them. And while they were obviously not native Belgians, it was safer to be perceived as Germa
n Christians than as Jews. Gertrude found a flat to rent in Brussels for herself, Inge, and Nathan. She enrolled the children in a secular school.

  Genek and Melly found their own place on the top floor of a building on Rue Rogier, in the area of Brussels known as Schaerbeek. The street was lined with three- and four-story buildings. Most apartments had a small balcony enclosed by a wrought-iron fence facing the street. They chose this neighborhood because it was not a “Jewish” one; most of their neighbors were non-Jews. One-year-old Bobby loved nothing better than to stand on the balcony looking down at people walking by. When his parents’ back was turned he grabbed whatever item he could reach and threw it off the balcony, delighting in seeing it bounce off the sidewalk.

  Once again Genek set up shop inside the apartment, stacking his fur scraps and hides on the shelves, and finding a nook for his sewing machine. He still had to work; they still had to sell the fur garments he made so they could earn a little money to buy food and pay rent.

  In May 1941 an ordinance decreed that all Jewish males over sixteen years of age were responsible for compulsory labor duty. The Germans pressured the AJB into supplying ten thousand names, and these ten thousand young men received letters telling them to report for work duty on a certain date. The Jewish men were told to meet at the train station and that from there they would be transported to factories.

  These ten thousand Jewish men and boys reported for “work duty” as ordered, and were transported into northern Belgium and northern France to do forced manual labor to aid the Nazi war machine. Some young men even reported voluntarily, hoping to appease the Germans with their obedience and willingness to cooperate. Once sent to the factories or work camps, however, they were literally worked to death. The unfortunate men who were conscripted were almost universally never heard from again.

  It was never the Nazis’ intention to have these young men return home. They were Jews, subhuman, useful only to do labor, and if they became too weak or sick to be useful, they were shipped to the death camps that were sprouting up in the wake of the Nazi “final solution.” The boys’ worried families wondered why they stopped receiving letters from their sons and brothers within weeks of leaving home.

  In response to this work ordinance, Rabbi Ullmann sought help from the local authorities, and even reached out to Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother of King Leopold, the sovereign of Belgium. The queen allegedly called Hitler to plead on the Jews’ behalf; he supposedly promised her that only foreign-born Jews would be deported on this work detail, and that Belgian Jews would be allowed to serve within the country. Apparently this promise placated the queen.

  Since most of the Jews in Belgium were non-native this was a weak promise, and of course it was a lie; within a year the Nazis were rounding up and deporting Belgian-born Jews as well. Even the leaders of the AJB did not escape this fate. They, too, were arrested and deported in the second wave of raids.

  It is important to note that of the roughly hundred thousand Jews residing in Belgium at this time, only about ten percent had Belgian citizenship. The rest were foreign Jews who had relocated to Belgium from other countries. It was, in fact, extremely difficult for immigrants to obtain Belgian citizenship. The laws did not even recognize children born in Belgium as citizens if their parents were foreign-born. So Bobby, for example, though born in Belgium, was not given Belgian citizenship at birth. The immigrants and their children were considered “stateless.” This “stateless” status was yet another means the Nazi regime used to strip Jews of any rights, and to ensure that no government would protest their deportation and demise.

  As the war progressed the Germans instituted stringent rations for the Belgian people. The rations were inadequate; everyone was hungry. By the winter of 1941 many were close to starvation. To obtain enough food to feed a growing child, Melly had to venture out, passing as a Christian German, to sell Genek’s fur garments on the black market. Of course, this was highly illegal and dangerous. Anyone caught trading on the black market could expect arrest, deportation, even execution, if discovered by the Nazis. But with little choice, she proceeded, bartering to get milk, butter, flour, and vegetables to feed the family.

  Melly

  Life under Occupation

  It wasn’t bad enough that we were living under Nazi tyranny and feeling squeezed by their ever-worsening decrees. It wasn’t enough that I was desperately trying to get enough food to keep us alive, that I was risking my life every time I went out to barter on the black market, hoping the local police or the Nazi soldiers wouldn’t decide to question me. It wasn’t enough that I was terrified for Bobby’s safety. No, in addition to all of that, I had my husband to contend with.

  Genek wouldn’t leave me alone. There was no birth control. I tried to put him off, asked him to be careful, to wait until a safer time of the month, to leave me alone, for God’s sake – we had enough to worry about. But he wouldn’t. Shortly after we arrived in Brussels I realized I was once again pregnant.

  I think that was the first time I felt the blackness descend upon me. I had never been happy, my life had been hard, but when I discovered that I was pregnant in 1941 I took to my bed and could not get up. I curled up and wished I was dead. I could not have another baby now; the world was bleak and perilous. Every day was getting worse. What was I going to do? Genek yelled at me to get up. I closed my eyes and wept.

  The only reason I was able to go on was Bobby. My beautiful son was my pride and joy. When he crept into my room and called, Mama!, I got out of bed. At age one he was walking, starting to talk, laughing and exploring, oblivious to the horrors around us. His blond curls and wide blue eyes made my heart sing.

  For Bobby I would continue. I found out there was a Jewish doctor who would terminate a pregnancy. I guess I wasn’t the only woman in desperate straits in wartime Brussels. I visited him in his clinic and asked for his help. He was sad, he told me. He used to bring life into this world; now all the Jewish patients came to him wanting to end the life inside them. I didn’t want to hear his stories. I did what I had to do. It was painful, it was awful, it was terrifying. It was necessary. I went home and concentrated on keeping the child I had safe.

  I would have liked to keep him indoors, away from the dangerous streets, but Bobby was obsessed with streetcars. From our balcony he could see them pass by, and all he wanted was to go on a car ride. Please Mama, please Papa, take me for a car ride! He was a child; he needed to go out sometimes. Thank God for Nathan – my younger brother loved my son, and after school he came to our apartment and took little Bobby out. Twelve years older than Bobby, he seemed somewhere between an uncle and a big brother to him. Down they went to the streetcar, riding it for hours, from one end of the line to the other, Bobby’s eyes glued to the window, in heaven the entire time. As Bobby got a bit older, Nathan had to warn him not to talk. A child speaking Yiddish could attract unwanted attention. As Nathan came to collect him, my little son almost broke my heart by solemnly promising: Bobby nischt dreiden, Bobby won’t talk.

  I spent my days helping Genek sew his pelts, and whenever I could find yarn I fell back to my knitting hobby. Of course I made everything for Bobby – socks, hats, sweaters. We had nothing for him, so these woolens were a necessity. I will never forget the time that Bobby went out to the balcony, took off a sweater I had painstakingly knit him and threw it down onto the street! What can you do? He was a little child, he had no idea that yarn was precious. To him everything was a game.

  Things were bad, and getting worse. The economy was a disaster. The Germans discontinued use of the Belgian franc, forcing the country to use Reichmarks. And when Germany went to war against Russia on the eastern front, the Germans demanded ever more of the Belgian foodstuffs for their army, and our rationing got even more stringent. We were allocated only 225 grams of bread per person, which provided less than 500 calories per day. Everyone had to stand in lines to collect bread, and in other lines to collect a little fat, half-spoiled potatoes or cabbage. Total rat
ions were less than 1,000 calories. Everyone was hungry, everyone was too thin, and epidemics of disease were breaking out in the poorest neighborhoods.

  I kept my eyes and ears open, always on the lookout for an opportunity. Sometimes I took the train out to the countryside, where there were still some groceries to buy. These trips were dangerous. Everything was dangerous. Buying food illegally was dangerous. Riding the streetcars was dangerous. I became quite the accomplished actress, throwing back my shoulders and striding “confidently” along the city streets to do my illegal errands. Because I knew this: showing fear was the most dangerous thing of all.

  We were so cut off too. The Germans had confiscated all the Belgian media. We had no newspapers or radio to give us accurate reports of what was going on in the world. German news was dreck. They told us what they wanted us to hear; everyone knew that. Jews were not allowed to own radios, but we had ignored the mandate to turn ours over to the authorities. We kept our radio, and it was hidden at all times. Sometimes we were able to catch the BBC newscast from London. It was very scary to take out the radio and tune in to the BBC. This crime was punishable by death if we were caught. The news we did hear on the BBC did nothing to lift our spirits. One exception was when we learned that the United States had finally declared war on Germany and Japan after Pearl Harbor. That was reassuring. Maybe America could turn the tide of this war. But most of the news was terrible. We tried to be optimistic, but it was hard not to lose hope.

  July 1942 brought even worse tidings. The Germans decreed that all Jews had to wear a yellow star on our clothes. The star had the word “Juif” printed on it, and failure to comply was grounds for execution. We were faced with a terrible dilemma: wear the star and be readily identified as Jewish, or ignore the mandate and risk execution if discovered. To add insult to injury, we had to pay for these stars! Yes, we were forced to use some of our precious money to buy this shameful symbol of our own persecution.