Beyond Anne Frank: Hidden Children and Postwar Families in Holland

4. “My Mother Screamed and Screamed”: Memories of Occupation, War, and Hiding

We begin with the changing lives of Jewish children and their families during the Occupation, when they faced the possibility of separation, deportation , and death. This chapter will deal with the perceptions of these children as danger enveloped their lives and as they began the “descent” into hiding. (The term for hiding in Dutch—onderduiken—literally means “to dive under.”)1 We will also examine the vast range of their experiences while in hiding, setting the stage for the next several chapters on postwar family reconstruction. Documentation of children’s lives during the Occupation and war is fragmentary at best. Diaries such as Anne Frank’s were relatively rare, and no one I interviewed had written one. It was very risky to keep a journal or diary, particularly if such materials were found during a raid (Dwork 1991: xxiii). And most of those in hiding whom I interviewed were too young to have engaged in diary writing. It is also the case that many hiding families were very religious and/or poor and would not 4 “My Mother Screamed and Screamed” MEMORIES OF OCCUPATION, WAR, AND HIDING 126 have encouraged such an activity, because it would have been seen either as frivolous or as too costly. If anything, children in hiding were encouraged to forget their identities and to erase any signs of the past. Not surprisingly, children’s memories of the Occupation vary greatly depending on their age. Most respondents who were young children at the time do not recall this period, even if it was full of radical life changes. Some childhood memories are strong and clear; others are vague and shadowy but still created enough of an impression that respondents were able to describe their feelings about an event. I am reminded here of Wilkomirski’s now-discredited memoir Fragments in which he vividly describes the space of childhood memories as “a rubble field of isolated images and events . . . mostly a chaotic jumble, with very little chronological fit” (1996: 4). Although fabricated, these descriptions seem apt. the experience of occupation Many respondents who were between the ages of 3 and 5 during the Occupation recall that there was a great deal of whispering and nervousness among the adults, reminiscent of scenes from Bergman’s film Fanny and Alexander. Young children had no inkling of what it meant to be Jewish , but they were able to sense the fear and danger growing around them. Some recalled seeing their parents cry, an unsettling event that most likely had not occurred in the past. Others spoke about feeling fearful or being aware of danger simply by the way a parent held their hand or by the silence in the house. Lea, who was 4 or 5 years old at that time, remembers thinking that her family members and others were criminals because they were all being arrested. Although Peter was only 3 when he first saw German soldiers, he knew they represented danger and was fearful of them. Mary was 4 when there was a raid, and she remembered “a lot of noise. . . . And my mother screamed and screamed.” Sophia was 5 when her father was taken away but has no recollection of it. She does recall, however, wanting to wear a yellow star like her older sister (children younger than 6 did not have to wear one). In 1943 Peter V. was 5, when, m e m o r i e s o f o c c u pa t i o n , wa r , a n d h i d i n g 127 after being tipped off, police raided his apartment and dragged his grandmother away. He wept as he recounted what must have been a horrendous scene, remembering the shouting, the crying, his mother’s helplessness. Riwka was about 6 when her father was taken away. She recalls that before departing, he told her that her mother’s birthday was the next day and that he had hidden her present but would be back in time to give it to her. They never heard from him again, apart from receiving a card in the mail stating that he had died. As mentioned in the introduction, Max L. was about 6 when his mother left the house at a time when it was too dangerous to do so and never returned; he has no recollection of her disappearance. Since he is able to recall other...